China's Knowledge-Intense Service Import and Export Amass 1.36392 Trillion Yuan in First Half

The total value of service trade import and export was 3.13584 trillion yuan, up 8.5% year on year. A worthy star was knowledge-intense service trade, which contributed 1.36392 trillion yuan, up 12.3%. Recently, the Ministry of Commerce of China released the development of trade in services in the first half of the year 2023, according to the latest statistics, China's knowledge-intense service trade grew with the brilliant performance with the export 792.34 billion yuan, up 16%; the import 571.58 billion yuan, up 7.5%, accounting for 43.5% of the aforementioned total value, an uptick of 1.5% compared with last year. Despite slow recovery of the global economy and contracted exterior demand, China's service trade stayed on course of growth in the first half. Knowledge-intense service trade, among other categories, inched up its proportion in the general classification, graduating to a new engine hauling the growth of China's service trade.

Foreign trade constitutes an important part of China's national economy. Boosting foreign trade, stabilizing its scale and optimizing structure prop up steady economy growth, employment opportunities, construction of new development scheme and advancement of high-quality development. Knowledge-intense service trade with its high value-added and tech-loaded nature, mainly consists of IPR royalties, finance, personal culture and entertainment, telecommunications, computer and information service. Its brilliant performance - fast growth and proportion expansion - in the first half gives proof to China's marked progress in service trade competitiveness and ascension onto the higher end of the value chain. Li Jun, Director, International Service Trade Institute of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce is convinced that blessed with its high valued and growth-prone nature, knowledge-intense service commands the overall growth of the service trade, matching the current global trend.

Being a noticeable part of knowledge-intense service trade, IPR royalties kept its steady growth as well. From January to May, the import and export value of IPR royalties was 157.78 billion yuan, up 5.8% (import: 120.8 billion yuan; export: 36.98 billion yuan). Both import and export were on the right path, reflecting the resilience of IPR trade.

"High quality self-reliant IPRs may not only generate palpable economic profits, but can be an overarching support to a nation's service trade competitiveness," Qian Ziyu, an assistant professor with School of Law, University of International Business and Economics tells China Intellectual Property News. "Respecting and protecting IPRs can definitively defend the legitimate right and interest of market participants, inspire technological innovation and guard the development of the China's knowledge-intense service trade."

According to an industry insider, a power behind the double growth in both import and export scored by both knowledge-intense trade and IPR royalty trade is the rapid advancement of the digital economy. The wide coverage of digital technology in every aspect of the national economic cycle has greatly increase the tradability of service while the development of artificial intelligence, internet of things, block chain and other digital technologies has facilitated the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy, driving up the demand for service trade.

Actually, in recent years, China has made overall plans to develop its digital economy, in order to accelerate the development of the digital economy, further integrate it with the real economy, and build internationally competitive digital industry clusters, giving clear directions to the in-depth development of China's digital economy. China's 14th Five-Year Plan of IP Protection and Use demands research on setting rules for digital IPRs. Year to date, the eight digital IPR trial areas across the nation have been very dynamic with the launch of their digital registration platforms and the grant of digital IPR certificates to the data of multiple enterprises and institutes, offering support to advance the orderly flow of data elements and enabling data elements to play a commanding role in the digital economy era.

"With the unfolding of data elements' commanding role and indepth advancement of digitalized application scenarios, China's digital trade will inject all-new energy to global economic recovery, " Huang Chenhong, SAP Global Executive Vice President addressed at 2022 Forum on Trends and Latest Developments of Digital Trade.

Relying on IPR protection and use to promote service industry and open wider, build an environment favorable for service trade development and cultivate new energy for the development of global service trade will eventually contribute more to the constant, healthy and steady development and global economic recovery.