Recently, the "Opinions of the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council on the Reform, Innovation and Development of Digital Trade" were released. The Opinion is of great significance for accelerating the development of digital trade, promoting high-quality trade development, consolidating and enhancing China's position in the global industrial chain, supply chain, and value chain, and building a new system of higher-level open economy. In recent years, digital trade with data as a key element, digital services as the core, and digital ordering and delivery as the main features has flourished and become a new trend in international trade and a new growth point in the world economy. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to innovate and develop digital trade. Xie Lanlan, Associate Researcher at the World Economic Research Department of the China Center for International Economic Exchange, stated that under the guidance of the new development concept, the development of digital trade can provide sustainable impetus for China's economic growth. In the first half of this year, the import and export scale of digitally deliverable services in China reached 1.42 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.7%, reaching a historic high. In the first three quarters, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 1.88 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.5%, which is 6.2 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of China's foreign trade during the same period. China is a major country in the digital economy and foreign trade, with a good industrial foundation and broad market space for the development of digital trade. However, there are still shortcomings such as insufficient competitiveness of business entities, low degree of openness, and incomplete governance system. Li Tiantian, Deputy Director of the Emerging Economy Research Office at the Asia Pacific and Global Strategy Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, stated that digital technology is playing an increasingly important role in the global industrial and supply chains. With the development of digital trade, how to strengthen digital trade supervision has become an urgent research topic. In this context, China is continuously improving its digital trade governance system and promoting innovation in digital rules. At the same time, innovative development of digital trade requires constantly filling the gaps in development, breaking down institutional barriers, exploring institutional opening-up paths, and creating a more relaxed and open internal and external development environment. Xie Lanlan stated that the timely release of the "Opinions" has refined and decomposed the task of innovative development of digital trade, and has a positive guiding role in promoting high-quality development of digital trade in the future period. The Opinion on Improving Institutional Rules proposes that by 2029, the proportion of service trade that can be digitally delivered in China's total service trade will increase to over 45%, and a basic institutional mechanism that adapts to the development of digital trade will be established; By 2035, the proportion of digitally deliverable service trade in China's total service trade will increase to over 50%, an orderly, secure, and efficient digital trade governance system will be fully established, and the level of institutional openness will be comprehensively improved. At the same time, the Opinion proposes 18 practical measures from three dimensions to promote the innovative development of digital trade in China. One is to support the development of sub sectors and business entities in digital trade. The five tasks include actively developing digital product trade, continuously optimizing digital service trade, vigorously developing digital technology trade, promoting high-quality development of data ordering trade, and cultivating and strengthening digital trade operators, focusing on shaping new driving forces and advantages for the development of China's digital trade. The second is to promote institutional openness in digital trade. Including three tasks: relaxing market access in the digital field, promoting and regulating cross-border data flow, and building a high-level open platform for digital trade, we will focus on expanding China's digital field to the outside world. The third is to improve the digital trade governance system. Including actively participating in the formulation of international rules for digital trade, deepening international cooperation in digital trade, accelerating the construction of a digital trust system, and strengthening security governance in the digital field, we will focus on improving the level of digital trade governance in China. At present, the construction of rules in the global digital economic and trade field lags behind practical development, presenting a fragmented, unilateral, and group oriented trend, raising the institutional compliance cost of digital trade, and reducing the effectiveness of digital trade in promoting inclusive growth of the global economy. It is urgent to strengthen international coordination and cooperation and build an institutional environment that adapts to the development of digital globalization Xie Lanlan analyzed that. Li Tianguo stated that with the rapid development of China's digital economy, it is necessary to actively connect with international high standard rules, promote institutional innovation in digital trade, and fully unleash China's digital trade advantages based on the global trend of digital trade development and the current situation of digital trade development in China. The World Internet Development Report 2024 released at the end of November this year shows that countries around the world have steadily pushed forward the construction of information infrastructure and entered a new stage of expansion and upgrading. The development of digital technology is advancing rapidly, entering an explosive period of accelerated innovation, and strategic industries such as the new generation of information technology are accelerating breakthroughs. The global digital economy has ushered in a new round of development boom, and the potential for development is accelerating. According to data released by the World Trade Organization, from 2019 to 2023, the average annual growth rate of global exports of digitally deliverable services reached 10.8%, which is 4.9 percentage points higher than the growth rate of exports of services. In 2023, the global export value of digitally deliverable services will reach 4.25 trillion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 9%, and the scale will reach a new historical high, accounting for 54.2% of global service trade exports. China's digital trade still has growth potential Xie Lanlan stated that the depth and breadth of digital trade can be continuously expanded. Digital technology empowers the real economy, giving rise to new formats and models. The dual wheel drive of industrial digitization and digital industrialization drives high-quality economic growth, continuously expanding the boundaries of service tradability. In the future, with the continuous upgrading and iteration of digital technology, some traditional offline service trade, such as transportation services, tourism services, maintenance and repair services, can also achieve digital cross-border delivery. It should also be noted that the current world economic growth is slow, unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, and common challenges are increasing. The reform of the global economic governance system urgently needs to be promoted. Li Tianguo stated that some countries have become more conservative in policies such as trade and investment, and the trend of "friendly shore" in the global industrial chain has increased, resulting in a decrease in efficiency. Faced with the complex and ever-changing international situation, China has always adhered to the spirit of openness, inclusiveness, and win-win, continuously promoted economic reform and institutional innovation, further expanded opening up to the outside world, and strengthened linkage with the global economic and trade system. In the first three quarters, China's service trade continued to grow rapidly, with a total import and export volume of 5518.14 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.5%. In the first 10 months, China's total import and export value of goods trade was 36.02 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.2%. Foreign trade has achieved steady growth, making positive contributions to global trade growth and economic recovery. (New Society)