(ChinaNews, Sept 29, 2006) On September 26-27, the International Service and Trade Forum organized by the Ministry of Commerce was held in Beijing. At the meeting, Vice Minister of Commerce Liao Xiaoqi said that since China opened its service industry, its service and trade sectors have made rapid development. At present, China has set up a comprehensive, multi-faceted opening structure in the service industry.

Liao said that China attaches great importance to opening its service sector to the outside world. The types of services that China promises to open cover 10 out of the 12 big categories written in the General Agreement on Trade in Service (GATS), or 100 out of the 160 small categories, accounting for 62.5% of the total number of service departments. The scale of openness in China has approximated to the opening level in developed countries. After China joined the World Trade Organization, Chinese government has carried out its commitment earnestly and opened its banking, insurance, securities, telecom service and distribution sectors to foreign investment, as it committed before. In addition, Chinese government has actively participated in the trade negotiations initiated by the Doha Development Agenda. In the business service and transportation sector, China has made some new commitments. In some other fields, China has further improved its current commitments in these fields.

In China, transnational trade surged from 4.34 billion US dollars in 1982 to 158.2 billion US dollars in 2005, increasing by 36-fold in 23 years¡¯ time and doubling the average growth level in the world. The proportion of the Chinese transnational trade volume to the total global trade volume has also increased, from 0.6% previously to the current 3.3%. China¡¯s trade service export ranked 28th in the world in 1982, while it climbed to the 8th place in 2005. In the same period, its import volume changed from the 40th place in the world to the 7th. source:ChinaNews