Shenzhen's value of exports and imports of services hit US$96 billion between January and November 2022, up by 12% year on year.
Service exports reached US$56 billion, surging 20% year on year, with service trade surplus expanded to US$17 billion, data from the First Greater Bay Area Trade in Services Fair & China (Shenzhen) Cross-border E-commerce Fair showed last week.
“Shenzhen is the only Chinese city with a service trade surplus reaching the US$10 billion-benchmark,” Kou Ya’nan, deputy commissioner of the Shenzhen Special Commissioner Office of Ministry of Commerce, said at the fair’s opening ceremony Thursday.
According to Kou, Shenzhen has set a good example for opening up and developing the service trade sector by leveraging its strength in developing strategic, emerging and future industries, making use of policies as the pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics, being the core city of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and acting as one of the key nodes of the Belt and Road Initiative.
The city has also garnered enough experience that can be replicated in terms of piloting innovative development in service trade and the construction of a model service sourcing city in Guangdong Province, according to Zhao Shangqun, an official from the Guangdong Provincial Commerce Department.
The city also features three advantages in developing the service trade sector. They include an advantage in industry, which is underpinned by the grand scale of the manufacturing industry of the Pearl River Delta cities, an advantage in technologies, particularly in digital technology, and an advantage in talents, according to Zhong Zeyu, deputy chief of the China Service Trade Association.