Editor's note: John Gong is a professor at the University of International Business and Economics and a research fellow at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies at UIBE. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

On August 31 in Beijing, the 2022 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) opened amidst the lingering news of COVID-19 infections still propping up in several cities in China. Thanks to the country's effective pandemic control measures, the CIFTIS is able to open on time as scheduled.

Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the Fair, in which he said that China has adhered to promoting high-quality development with high-level opening up, kept widening its market access in the services sector and lifted the level of opening-up for cross-border services trade. Xi added that the nation has expanded the functions of its opening-up platforms and strived to build a high-standard set of systems for the opening-up of the services sector.

Trade in services is indeed one area China needs to continue to open up, even against the backdrop of China's large trade deficit in services, albeit being the world's largest trading nation. According to the data from the Ministry of Commerce, China enjoyed a trade surplus of $554 billion in goods in 2021, but incurred a trade deficit of nearly $100 billion in services.

Compared to many industrialized countries, service trade as a percentage of GDP in China is still quite small. For example Germany's service trade accounts for 18 percent of GDP. Here in China, it accounts for less than 10 percent.

So it appears that exports of services have plenty of room for growth, particularly in those high value-added service areas such as those related to the digital economy. Retail for example, is a large component of the services sector, and China has done remarkably well in electronic commerce, with industry behemoths like Alibaba and JD.com who have developed venerable order handling and supply chain infrastructures.

Two and half years into the COVID-19 era, the e-commerce sector in China has decidedly demonstrated its reliability and resilience. There is a vast amount of highly sophisticated advanced technologies behind it that can be used to replicate their business models overseas.

But services imports are important as well. Over 2,400 companies participated in the exhibition, including those participating offline, and among them are around 400 Global Fortune 500 companies and industry-leading enterprises.

For the past two and half years, China has witnessed a large dip in services imports, particularly manifested in reduced overseas travels understandably due to COVID-19. Many countries around the world have gotten rid of pandemic control measures entirely. And as more countries follow suit, it may be just a matter of time that the policies in China, especially those restricting international travel, will be adjusted sooner or later. And by that time, we would expect these services imports created overseas to increase dramatically.

One official news report associated with the event organizer mentioned that there was a fairly large amount of traffic at the expo areas today for Japanese, Korean, Swiss, Irish and some other countries' exhibitions. Some visitors even scan barcodes on the spot to place orders and make payments. These are all good signs that foreign products and services are still competitive in the world's largest consumer market.

The CIFTIS shows a dazzling array of new products and services from both domestic and foreign companies. I strongly recommend folks in Beijing to go and check it out. But as far as I am concerned, the most hopeful thing is President Xi's words in that congratulatory letter – "to build a high-standard set of systems for the opening-up of the services sector."

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