On July 4th, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed that from January to May 2024, China's service trade continued to grow rapidly, with a total import and export volume of 3021.96 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), a year-on-year increase of 16%. Among them, exports reached 1219.56 billion yuan, an increase of 11%; Imports reached 1802.4 billion yuan, an increase of 19.6%; The service trade deficit is 582.84 billion yuan. Zheng Wei, Deputy Researcher at the China Service Outsourcing Research Center, told reporters that in terms of total volume, China's service trade continued to show a rapid growth trend in the first five months, with service imports and exports maintaining double-digit growth year-on-year and strong momentum. It can be said that under the influence of multiple unfavorable factors such as global economic and trade conflicts, China's service trade still achieves high-speed growth, reflecting a stable industrial foundation and a long-term positive development trend. While the total volume is steadily increasing, China's service trade also has a series of structural highlights. Knowledge intensive service trade continues to grow. From January to May, the import and export of knowledge intensive services reached 1189.89 billion yuan, an increase of 6%. Among them, the export of knowledge intensive services reached 675.31 billion yuan, an increase of 2.8%. The fastest-growing areas include intellectual property usage fees, personal culture, and entertainment services, with growth rates of 17.8% and 15.5% respectively; The import of knowledge intensive services reached 514.58 billion yuan, an increase of 10.4%. The fastest-growing areas include personal cultural and entertainment services, as well as other commercial services, with growth rates of 49.4% and 17.2%, respectively. Zheng Wei analyzed that with the rapid development of China's knowledge and technology intensive service industry, knowledge intensive service trade is showing a rapid development trend. This indicates that after years of effort and exploration, China's service trade innovation and high-quality development have achieved significant results. Looking ahead to the next step, Zheng Wei pointed out that China's service trade continues to expand and open up measures. In terms of commercial presence, it is highly likely that China will continue to reduce and reduce the special management measures related to the service industry in the negative list of foreign investment access in 2024, to help accelerate the opening of service trade in the commercial presence model; In terms of cross-border service trade, in March this year, China announced the implementation of the national version and the free trade pilot zone version of the negative list of cross-border service trade, which will help accelerate the development of cross-border delivery, overseas consumption, and natural person movement in service trade on a larger scale. "These are important measures taken by China to proactively benchmark international high standard economic and trade rules and promote institutional openness, which will provide new opportunities for global service trade openness and cooperation," Zheng Wei said. (Lai Xin She)