Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have issued a series of policies and measures to keep the development of service trade stable and achieved positive results. In 2020, the decrease in China's service trade is lower than those of the world's major service traders, and the decline in growth rate narrows with every passing quarter. Since the beginning of this year, China's service trade has generally continued to stabilize and improve. In the first quarter, the total import and export of services was RMB1,158.19 billion, an increase of 0.5%. Among them, the import and export of services increased by 7.9% in March, which is the first positive monthly growth of service import and export since 2020.

At present, the new technological revolution led by digital technology has injected new impetus into the innovative development of service trade. With the effective implementation of various policies to keep the development of service trade stable and the continuous optimization of the business environment for service trade, it is expected that China's service trade will keep the good momentum throughout the year. At the same time, we also see that the current international trend on COVID-19 is still uncertain, the cross-border flow of people is still limited, the international competition in service trade is intensifying, and the development of China's service trade still faces many uncertain and unstable factors.

The Ministry of Commerce will, in accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, closely focus on fostering a new development pattern, develop service trade with innovations, continue to strengthen comprehensive reform and exploration, help the 122 reform measures of comprehensively deepening the pilot program on innovation and development of service trade take effect as soon as possible, study facilitation measures to promote the cross-border flow of service factors, reform and improve the technology trade administration system, expand the opening of key areas in an orderly manner, promote institutional opening-up, vigorously develop digital trade, accelerate the transformation and upgrading of service outsourcing, promote the export of services with distinctive advantages and promote the high-quality development of service trade. Thank you.