The fourth China-Singapore Trade in Services Innovation Forum, an important 
official supporting event of the fourth China International Import Expo, was 
held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai yesterday 
afternoon. It was also the first time that the annual forum was held at the 
CIIE venue.


This year, the forum took as its theme 'Digital Empowerment, Create the New 
Pattern of High-Level Opening-up in Trade in Service.'

How to accelerate the development of digital trade, how to set up and improve 
the its governance system, and enhance the ability and level of such governance 
have become the key issues about which all parties are concerned in the process 
of promoting the high-level development of trade in services.


The forum was hosted by the Jiangsu Provincial People's Government and 
organized by the Suzhou Municipal People's Government and Suzhou Industrial 
Park Administrative Committee. Yicai Media Group provided all-media support as 
the exclusive media partner.

Exploring New Paths to Open Up Services

Suzhou Industrial Park, one of the forum's organizers, is an important 
collaboration project between the governments of China and Singapore. It boasts 
the special gene that marks the partnership between China and Singapore, and it 
has the advantages that are richly endowed by nature in promoting the 
development of the trade in services and digital trade. 

The world's first special agreement covering the digital economy, the Digital 
Economy Partnership Agreement, was signed by New Zealand, Singapore and Chile 
on June 12 last year. Singapore is also a member of the Regional Comprehensive 
Economic Partnership that will take effect next Jan. 1 and the country will 
take over the presidency of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for 
Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2022.


Last December, China and Singapore also announced follow-up talks on upgrading 
the China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement to focus on negotiations over trade in 
services and investment liberalization by adopting a negative list, to further 
liberalize and facilitate bilateral trade and investment.


Chua Teng Hoe, consul-general of the Republic of Singapore in Shanghai, signed 
the Memorandum of Understanding for Service Industry Development between the 
People's Government of Suzhou at the forum. Singapore's Ministry of Trade and 
Industry, Bank of Communications and the Suzhou Industrial Park also penned a 
strategic agreement, and 21 groups of company representatives in three batches 
inked contracts at the forum.

Suzhou became a pilot city for China to experiment with service trade 
innovative development in 2006. The Suzhou Industrial Park is a leader in 
service trade development in the city and even Jiangsu province, and in recent 
years has been hitting new record highs in the scale of services trade with 
better structure and higher quality.

Yang Yudong, editor-in-chief of Yicai Media Group, attended a roundtable 
brainstorming with representatives of companies and institutions in Shanghai 
and Suzhou at the forum on the topic of 'Vision under the New Pattern of 
Shanghai-Suzhou Integrated Development: Digital Technology Rebuilding the 
Global Industrial Chain.'

Source: Yicai Media Group