Xi reaffirms China's commitment to high-level opening up

President Xi Jinping reaffirmed on Saturday Beijing's commitment to pushing forward a high level of opening up, saying that China will open wider in sectors including telecommunications, tourism, law and vocational examinations and widen the market access in the services sector.

Speaking via video link at the Global Trade in Services Summit of the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services, Xi pledged continuous steps to advance Chinese modernization on all fronts through high-quality development to provide all countries with new opportunities for openness and cooperation.

In developing the services sector and trade in services, China will work with all countries and parties to advance inclusive development through openness, promote connectivity and integration through cooperation, foster drivers for development through innovation, and create a better future through shared services, he told the summit.

The world today is confronted with accelerated changes unseen in a century. Trade in services is a key component of international trade, with the services sector being an important area of economic and trade cooperation between countries, he said.

China will make its development environment more open and more inclusive, and the nation will expand the globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas and actively engage in negotiations on the negative list for trade in services and investment, he said.

He said the national integrated demonstration zones for greater openness in the services sector, eligible pilot free trade zones and free trade port will be the first to align policies with high-standard international economic and trade rules.

"We will widen access to China's services sector, advance the opening up in cross-border services trade in an orderly manner, improve the level of standardization of services trade, and steadily expand institutional opening up," he said.

In enhancing win-win cooperation, Beijing will boost synergy with development strategies and cooperation initiatives of various countries, deepen cooperation on services trade and digital trade with Belt and Road partner countries, facilitate the cross-border flow of resources and production factors, and foster more growth areas for economic cooperation, Xi said.

He reaffirmed China's resolve in sharing the outcomes of the Chinese modernization drive, saying China will vigorously boost domestic demand, accelerate the building of a robust domestic market, take the initiative to increase the imports of quality services, and encourage more exports of knowledge-intensive services.

"We will lend new impetus to global development with the opportunities generated by China's vast market, and offer more and better Chinese services to the world through high-quality development in a bid to increase the sense of gains of people around the world."

He stressed that the world economy thrives in openness and withers in seclusion, while calling on various sides to jointly upholdthe hard-won free trade and multilateral trading regime, share in the historic opportunities in the development of global trade in services, and work together for an even brighter and more prosperous future of the world.

The 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services is underway in Beijing until Wednesday under the theme of "Opening Up Leads Development, Cooperation Delivers the Future."