Due to the restriction of long-term planned economic system and economic development level, China's service industry started late and has a poor foundation. Although it has developed rapidly in recent years, there is still a big gap compared with developed countries and even some developing countries. The added value of service industry in western developed countries accounts for more than 60% of GDP, while the proportion of service industry in China was only 33.2% in 2000, which is still lower than the average level of 40% in developing countries. At present, the comparison between international trade in services and goods is about 1:4, while that in China in 2000 was 1:7.
Thus, in terms of the proportion of China's overall service industry added value to GDP, China has not yet entered the post-industrial society. The service industry is underdeveloped, and the secondary industry is still the most important industrial sector in the national economy. A considerable part of the reason for the underdevelopment of the service industry lies in the lack of openness of the service industry, including the openness to foreign trade and foreign investment. A considerable part of the reason why the service industry is not open enough lies in its weak international competitiveness.
The Trade Openness of China's Service Industry
The trade openness of service industry refers to the percentage of the total import and export of service trade in the country's GDP. It reflects the degree of a country's participation in international service trade and the dependence of a country's economic growth on the international service market. The relevant calculation formula is:
TIS =(TSx+TSi)/GDP；
TIC=(TCx+TCi)/GDP。
Among them, TIS and TIC represent the openness of service trade and goods trade respectively, while TSx, TSi, TCx and TCi represent the export and import of service trade and goods trade respectively.
Since 1985, the total import and export volume of China's service trade has increased almost year by year (table 1), from $5 1985 to $66.46 billion in 2000, with an average annual growth rate of 19.9%. Although China's GDP (dollar value) has also increased at an average annual rate of 9.6% since 15, the ratio of total service trade to GDP, that is, the openness of service industry to trade, is still on the rise. The ratio of service trade openness to goods trade openness is also increasing gradually, from 8% of 1985 to 14.3% in 2000. This shows that the gap between the openness of service trade and the openness of goods trade is gradually narrowing. In fact, the average annual growth rate of service trade openness is 10.5%, which is 5 percentage points higher than that of goods trade openness.
While the service trade is opening up, we should also see that the development scale of China's service trade is too small. From 1985 to 2000, the average annual import and export volume of China's service trade was only $27.6 billion, and the average annual proportion of total service trade to total goods trade was 12.9%, far below the world average of more than 25% in the same period. In 2000, the openness of China's service industry to trade was 6.2%, which was the highest level in the history of service trade, but it was still far below the openness of goods trade of 42.9% in the same year. The openness of service trade has been lower than that of goods trade 1/5 for more than ten years, which shows that the position of China's service trade relative to goods trade is still quite weak. Internationally, the openness of service trade in many western countries (such as France, Britain, Italy, etc. ) has exceeded 10% in recent years, while China is still hovering between 5-6%.
With the service industry becoming more and more open, transportation, tourism and other commercial services are the three industries that carry out the most service trade, accounting for about 85% of the total service trade (Table 2). In the export structure of service industry, the top three are tourism, other commercial services and transportation; In the import industry structure, the top three are tourism, transportation and other commercial services. Among them, tourism accounts for 40-50% of the total service trade, and it is the industry with the highest trade openness in the service industry. In recent years, the trade openness of tourism is between 2-3%, transportation and other commercial services are between 1-2%, and all other service industries are below 1%.
The openness of foreign investment in China's service industry
Limited by statistical data, the openness of foreign investment in service industry in this paper only investigates the utilization of foreign direct investment in service industry, while ignoring all indirect investment and foreign direct investment in service industry. For the time being, the percentage of foreign direct investment in service industry and GDP is used to express the openness of foreign investment in service industry. The relevant calculation formula is:
IIFS = foreign direct investment/GDP.
IIFS represents the openness of service industry to direct investment, and FDIis represents the actual foreign direct investment in service industry.
Compared with the openness of service industry to trade in China, the openness of service industry to foreign investment seems to be lower, which is related to the fact that the data in Table 3 ignores the indirect investment and foreign direct investment in service industry, but it can still be used as a relatively convenient indicator to examine the openness of service industry to foreign investment. During the three years from 1998 to 2000, the openness of China's service industry to foreign investment was 1.29%, 1. 10% and 0.82% respectively, showing a downward trend year by year. Within the service industry, real estate is the industry with the highest degree of openness to foreign investment, with an openness of 0.4-0.7% and a contribution rate of more than 50% to the openness of foreign investment in the service industry. Followed by the social service industry, the openness is between 0.2 and 0.4%, and the contribution rate is above 25%. However, the openness of health, education, literature and art, social welfare and other industries to foreign investment is very low, only 0.0 1%. Some industries (such as insurance and financial services) are not even open to foreign investment.
International Competitiveness of China's Service Industry
The quantitative index used to measure the international competitiveness of an industry is the comparative advantage index, that is, the ratio of the trade balance of an industry to the total trade of the industry can generally reflect the comparative advantage of the industry in the international market. The range of comparative advantage index is [- 1, 1]. The closer its value is to 0, the closer its comparative advantage is to the average level. The closer to 1, the greater the comparative advantage and the stronger the competitiveness; The closer to-1, the smaller the comparative advantage and the weaker the competitiveness. Its value is equal to 1 or-1, indicating that the industry only exports or imports. The relevant calculation formula is:
CAI=(Xij-Mij)/(Xij+Mij)。
Among them, CAI stands for comparative advantage index, Xij and Mij stand for the export and import of J industry in country I respectively.
For a long time, China's service trade has developed on a small scale. In recent years, the service trade deficit and the goods trade surplus are in sharp contrast, reflecting the weak international competitiveness of China's service industry. The international competitiveness of a country's service industry is directly reflected in its share of service exports in the world. According to the annual report of the WTO in 2000, the top three countries in the world market share of service exports in 1999 are the United States, Britain and France, with their shares of 18.8%, 7.6% and 5.9% respectively. However, China's service exports only account for 2% of the world market, ranking 14, which is still far behind the developed countries.
Judging from the comparative advantage index (Table 4), from 1985- 199 1 year, the comparative advantage index of the service industry was positive, reaching a level close to 0.3 at one time. However, since 1992, except 1994, the comparative advantage index of service industry has been negative, and it has basically remained at the level of -0. 1 in recent years. This shows that compared with the 1980s, the international competitiveness of China's service industry even shows a downward trend. Since China's service industry has long relied on labor-intensive methods, since the 1990s, the world's service industry has become more and more capital-intensive and technology-intensive, which makes it difficult to maintain the comparative advantage of China's service industry and its comparative disadvantage increasingly prominent.
Among the service industries, only the comparative advantage index of tourism and communication services was greater than zero in the three years from 1998 to 2000 (Table 5). Among them, since 1985, tourism has maintained a trade surplus in all trade of service trade in China, and has also made the greatest contribution to service trade, accounting for about 40-50% of the total import and export of service trade in China. However, judging from the trend in recent years, the international competitiveness of tourism services is declining in fluctuations. The average comparative advantage index of communication services in recent three years is 0.6, but the high international competitiveness reflected by it actually comes from the state monopoly, not the comparative advantage of the industry itself. From 1998 to 2000, the comparative advantage indexes of transportation and construction, which have always been regarded as labor-intensive, were all negative, with the average value of transportation being -0.53 and the average value of construction being -0.26. Internationally, since 1980s, with the prevalence of ocean container transportation and BOT mode in the international construction industry, the capital and technology content in transportation and construction services are getting higher and higher, which is the disadvantage of China. 1998, the comparative advantage index of high value-added service trade fields such as insurance, finance, information, patents and consulting is negative. Among them, the financial and information service industries have improved in the past two years, while insurance and patents are the industries with the worst international competitiveness in the service industry. In 2000, their comparative advantage index was around -0.9, and they were not competitive in the international market.
policy advice
Since the reform and opening up, although the added value of China's service industry has increased from 23.7% in 1978 to 33.2% in 2000, and the proportion of employment absorbed by the service industry has increased from 1978 to 27.5% in 2000, the service industry has not been fully developed. Compared with developed countries and some other countries, on the one hand, the openness of China's service industry to trade is 5%. The openness of service industry to foreign investment is around 1%, with a downward trend. Some industries (such as insurance and financial services) are not even open to foreign investment. On the other hand, the international competitiveness of China's service industry is relatively weak, and its comparative advantage index is around -0. 1, and some industries (such as insurance and patents) are even close to-1.
The emerging service industry led by information technology and high technology will become the main pillar of economic development in all countries in the future. For all countries in the world, it will be a good opportunity to deeply participate in international division of labor and improve international competitiveness by developing service industry to accelerate industrial upgrading and promote technological progress. At present, China's service industry is still mainly labor-intensive industries. With the increasing knowledge and informatization of the world service industry, we must take corresponding measures to improve the international competitiveness of China's service industry, and make it a new bright spot for China's economic growth in the 2 1 century.
1. Improve the market system and competition mechanism of the service industry and break the monopoly of the industry to adapt to the future development and open environment of the service industry. Some service industries in China (such as telecommunications, finance, insurance, etc. ) have a strong monopoly, which not only destroys the normal fair competition order, but also leads to insufficient innovation motivation and low efficiency in the service industry. In order to improve the international status of China's service industry, it is necessary to improve the degree of industry competition, improve the market system of service industry, stimulate the development of these industries through the adjustment of competition mechanism and market mechanism, and improve the ability of China's service industry to participate in international competition.
2. While giving full play to the comparative advantages of China's labor-intensive service industry, we will develop technology and human capital-intensive service industries in stages and with emphasis, laying a solid industrial foundation for the future development of the service industry. Nowadays, structural changes have taken place in the service industries of all countries in the world. A large number of emerging service industries, mainly producer services and professional services, have emerged and developed rapidly. Technology and human capital-intensive industries have become the irreversible direction of the future development of service industry. China must also give full play to the comparative advantages of the labor-intensive service industry and actively optimize the internal structure of the service industry.
3. The government guides and regulates the service industry to form self-regulatory intermediary organizations such as trade associations and self-regulatory trade unions, enhances the coordination ability within the industry, and prepares the micro-foundation in line with international practices for the opening of the service industry. In many developed countries, the service industry has formed an organization with the nature of an industry association, and its industry technology, employment, environmental protection and other standards have formed a very strict industry market barriers, and this intangible barrier is recognized by international rules. In order to improve the competitiveness of China's service industry, we can also consider strengthening the coordination ability within the industry, actively adjusting the competition order within the industry through intermediary organizations, and promoting the internationalization of China's service industry on the basis of conforming to international practices.