In February 2016, Guangzhou got the approval from the State Council to carry out the national pilot program for an innovative development of service trade. Recently, the government of Guangdong province approved the Plan of Guangzhou for Implementation of Pilot Program for an Innovative Development of Service Trade, marking that the pilot program of Guangzhou for this purpose has entered into the fast lane.

 

On September 5, the Guangzhou Municipal Commission of Commerce released the details of the plan and announced that Guangzhou will further consolidate and improve the status as an important national central city, propel concentration of high-end factors and highlight internationalization characteristics through the development of pilot projects for an innovative development of service trade to provide related experience that can be copied and extended nationwide.

 

Statistics indicated that, during the 12^th Five-Year Plan period, the service trade of Guangzhou maintained a fast development, with increasingly accelerated industrial concentration and an average annual increase of total volume of service trade of 29%. In 2015, Guangzhou ranked fourth nationwide in terms of imports and exports of service trade, and there were totally more than 8,000 service trade enterprises in the city.

 

The plan clearly specifies that, Guangzhou aims to realize service trade liberalization between Guangzhou and Hong Kong and Macao through system and mechanism innovation and development of new types of business, striving to see an average annual increase of service trade of more than 20% within the two years for the implementation of the pilot program and make new breakthroughs in this field. It’s expected that, by the end of the 13^th Five-Year Plan period, the total volume of service trade of Guangzhou will have doubled that at the end of the 12^th Five-Year Plan period, ranking the top nationwide, and the service trade will have accounted for 25% of the total foreign trade of the city.

 

In the future, Guangzhou will give full play to its advantages as an important national central city to focus on innovation of service trade systems and mechanisms and development modes, with emphasis laid on eight pilot tasks, development of four competitive sectors, cultivation of six characteristic fields and implementation of four guarantee measures, striving to establish a service trade innovation promotion system, cultivate market players, set up a new service trade development pattern consisting of “one core and three zones” and develop public service trade platforms to improve the scale and quality of the service trade of Guangzhou and build Guangzhou into a highland and comprehensive service hub featuring higher-level market opening-up and trade facilitation and enhanced supporting functions of domestic and international markets and resources for the development of service trade.

 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou, September 6, 2016