China's only national summit on outsourcing is underway in the city of Hangzhou. Hundreds of entrepreneurs and officials are discussing how to help China succeed in this new era of digital services. Some say it's all about a practice that western companies have used for years. CGTN's Wu Lei takes us to the 2018 China Sourcing Summit.

It's a win-win for companies and workers alike. Outsourcing services - where a company contracts part of its existing internal activity to another company are booming in China. Sun Changjiang's company provides one stop shopping for IP applications and protection. And since their inception in 2015, Sun says outsourcing has paid off in spades.

SUN CHANGJIANG, EXECUTIVE OFFICER HANGZHOU SEBE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SERVICE COMPANY "We started from 0 in China in the early days. But at the end of 2017, we had served more than 100 thousand domestic and foreign customers in more than 100 countries and regions."

The number of Chinese outsourcing companies has also climbed, from 500 in 2006 to over 43 thousand last year. Their outsourcing services cover more than 200 countries and regions worldwide. But Sun says one of the major challenges for service expansion is a lack of global talent. At this year's China Sourcing Summit in Hangzhou, Malaysian officials hope to enhance collaboration with Chinese enterprises.

HEW WEE CHOONG, VICE PRESIDENT MALAYSIA DIGITAL ECONOMY CORP. "Southeast Asia is multi-culture and multi-lingual. So Malaysia has the kind of talent that Chinese companies can tap into. So from a collaboration perspective, Chinese companies have the technology, Malaysia has the knowledge of the market."

The outsourcing business has been a key contributor to China's service industry growth. Chinese officials say they will put further effort into ratcheting up the service outsourcing industry.

WANG BINGNAN VICE MINISTER OF COMMERCE "The Ministry of Commerce is formulating a new round of guidelines and policy measures to accelerate the upgrading of the outsourcing industry, and promote the high-end transformation of digitalization of this sector."

Companies who will combine digital technologies with service outsourcing business are expected to enjoy more preferential taxation policies.

WU LEI HANGZHOU "As more Chinese companies speed up their digitalization process, they face challenges in growth sustainability and data security. China aims to introduce and develop more high end outsourcing companies, which are expected to offer more options for domestic companies. WL, CGTN, HZ."