China Boosts Service Exports with Proactive Policies, Eyeing Quality Leap

This year’s Government Work Report proposes to "encourage and support service exports" and outlines policy arrangements in expanding the opening-up of the service sector, building open platforms, promoting innovative development of trade in services, and participating in the formulation of international rules. Experts interviewed noted that China boasts enormous potential in service exports, and the policy arrangements reflect the country’s strategic direction of actively promoting service export development in the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan.

In recent years, with the accelerated adjustment of global industrial division of labor, the wide application of digital technology and the in-depth restructuring of the international economic and trade rule system, trade in services, especially service exports, has become an important driving force for expanding new space for high-level opening-up and releasing development potential. In 2025, China’s total service imports and exports exceeded 8 trillion yuan for the first time, a year-on-year increase of 7.4%, among which service exports rose by 14.2% year-on-year, showing a continuously optimized structure of trade in services.

Zhu Caihua, a professor at the Institute of International Economics of the University of International Business and Economics, stated that from the perspective of global economic and trade development trends, the development of trade in services is the main engine of future economic growth. While the three industrial revolutions in history greatly promoted the development of goods trade, the current fourth industrial revolution has triggered an explosion in producer services, leading to a sharp rise in demand for digital services, R&D and design, supply chains, inspection and testing, certification and recognition, as well as green services such as energy conservation, resource recycling, environmental governance and carbon footprint accounting management, accelerating the release of trade in services potential.

Data shows that from 2014 to 2024, China’s total service exports increased from 219.1 billion US dollars to 445.9 billion US dollars, with an average annual growth rate of 7.3%, and the competitiveness of high-tech and high-value-added service exports continued to improve. In 2025, China’s exports of knowledge-intensive services reached 1.83212 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.5%.

Zheng Wei, an associate researcher at the China Service Outsourcing Research Center, pointed out that China’s service exports are currently in a critical stage of shifting from "scale expansion" to "quality leap". Knowledge-intensive trade in services, represented by telecommunications, computer and information services as well as culture, has become a new engine for foreign trade growth, with export volume hitting record highs and trade deficit narrowing continuously, demonstrating strong international competitiveness. A new pattern of trade in services with higher openness, better structure and stronger momentum is taking shape at an accelerated pace.

Against the background of global economic digital transformation and domestic industrial structure upgrading, China’s international competitiveness in knowledge-intensive and high-value-added service sectors has further strengthened, and Chinese services are accelerating their entry into the international market. Experts said that encouraging and supporting service exports aims to transform the technological advantages and digital application capabilities nurtured by China’s super-large market into new competitive advantages in the global value chain through developing new quality productive forces.

In recent years, the proportion of new, green and intelligent elements in China’s foreign trade has been continuously improved, and the scale of digital trade in services has expanded steadily. For instance, imports and exports of telecommunications, computer and information services reached 1.10381 trillion yuan, growing 7.4 percentage points faster than the overall trade in services; the overseas market revenue of self-developed games has exceeded 100 billion yuan for six consecutive years, reaching 20.455 billion US dollars in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 10.23%.

Zhu Caihua emphasized that the continuous upgrading of the industrial foundation of the digital economy and its in-depth penetration into living and production fields have laid a solid foundation for expanding service exports. Policy dividends are constantly being released, forming a synergy between policy supply for trade in services and industrial development. China is constantly improving the negative list management system for cross-border trade in services, accelerating the exploration of opening up key service sectors, and nine ministries including the Ministry of Commerce have issued Several Policy Measures on Promoting Service Exports to provide policy guarantees.

Li Jun, Director of the Institute of International Trade in Services of the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, noted that China’s service sector has a large scale and solid foundation, but its international competitiveness and brand premium capacity are still insufficient, and it has not yet formed a globally influential national brand and core strength like "Made in China". Experts also pointed out that China faces challenges such as inconsistent international rule recognition standards, digital governance barriers and a shortage of high-end compound professionals, which requires promoting institutional opening-up, optimizing the negative list management and actively aligning with high-standard international economic and trade rules.

During this year’s National Two Sessions, Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao stated that efforts will be made to coordinate producer services and consumer services and vigorously develop trade in services. Along with the "Made in China" going global, exports of producer services such as R&D, design, inspection and maintenance will be expanded; along with the "Chinese investment" going global, professional services such as finance, law and consulting will be driven to export in coordination. Policies such as visa-free access will be fully utilized to expand travel service exports and tap the potential of service exports including culture, traditional Chinese medicine and catering.

To further promote the high-quality development of service exports, experts suggested strengthening financial support, making full use of special funds to support new formats such as digital and green services, expanding the coverage of export credit insurance, and giving play to the leverage role of innovation and development guidance funds, so as to fully release policy dividends and foster new drivers for foreign trade development.