On December 4th, the head of the Service Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce introduced the development of China's service trade from January to October this year, stating that from January to October 2024, China's service trade continued to grow rapidly, with a total import and export volume of 6125.58 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), a year-on-year increase of 14.6%. Among them, exports amounted to 2544.91 billion yuan, an increase of 16.6%; Imports amounted to 3580.67 billion yuan, an increase of 13.2%; The trade deficit in services was 1.03576 trillion yuan. The main characteristics are as follows: knowledge intensive service trade continues to grow. From January to October, the import and export of knowledge intensive services reached 2.36163 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.9%. Among them, the export of knowledge intensive services reached 1341.73 billion yuan, an increase of 5.7%. Personal cultural and entertainment services, telecommunications and computer services, and information services grew rapidly, with growth rates of 38.7% and 8.6%, respectively; The import of knowledge intensive services reached 1019.9 billion yuan, an increase of 6.1%. Personal cultural and entertainment services, as well as other commercial services, grew rapidly, with growth rates of 34.2% and 11.5%, respectively. Travel services are growing rapidly. From January to October, travel services continued to maintain high-speed growth, with imports and exports reaching 1.67094 trillion yuan, an increase of 41.2%, making it the largest sector of service trade. Xiao Benhua, Vice Dean of the Free Trade Zone Research Institute at Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, stated in an interview with reporters that there were three major highlights in the development of China's service trade in the first 10 months of this year: firstly, the overall growth rate was fast, maintaining double-digit rapid growth; Secondly, the export growth rate is higher than the import growth rate, and the service trade deficit has narrowed; The third is the rapid recovery of travel services, which has once again become the largest sector of service trade in China. Professor Chen Jianwei from the National Institute of Opening up at the University of International Business and Economics told reporters that in the first 10 months of this year, the overall scale of China's service trade expanded and the growth rate was considerable. Knowledge intensive service trade maintains a good development momentum, demonstrating China's increasing competitiveness in the field of knowledge economy. As the largest sector of service trade, travel services reflect the strong recovery of China's inbound tourism market and also indicate a strong demand for outbound tourism from Chinese residents. In Xiao Benhua's view, China has significant growth potential in both traditional service trade such as travel services and new service trade such as digital trade. Therefore, innovation efforts should be increased according to the characteristics and difficulties of different service trade fields. For example, in order to encourage trade in travel services, it is not only necessary to continue optimizing services in areas such as visas and payments, but also to accelerate the integration of culture and tourism, providing better experiences for foreign residents traveling to China. Looking ahead to the future, Chen Jianwei believes that the development prospects of China's service trade are broad. Firstly, in terms of policy support, China has fully implemented the negative list management system for cross-border service trade and orderly promoted the institutional opening-up of service trade, which will provide strong support for the development of service trade; Second, the joint construction of the "the Belt and Road" has provided a broad market for the development of service trade; Thirdly, the digital transformation of China's service trade is still in its early stages, and the rapid development of the digital economy will bring new growth points to service trade and inject new vitality into its development. (New Society)