The British “Financial Times” recently published an article stating that China has maintained its position as the world’s largest trader in goods for many consecutive years. At the same time, China’s service exports have accelerated in recent years, and knowledge-intensive services are becoming a new phenomenon in the changes in China’s foreign trade.
The article stated that China’s current rapidly growing service exports mainly include information and communication technology, engineering management, construction services, data analysis and research and development, etc. Financial services and intellectual property-related services have also expanded.
According to World Trade Organization data, China has risen from 17th place in the world in 2005 to the world’s sixth largest exporter of digital delivery services.
China’s exports of information and communication technology services will reach US$100 billion in 2024, higher than exports of toys and footwear; exports of “other commercial services” including consulting services, R&D and technology will reach US$113 billion, which is also higher than the export scale of some traditional commodities such as steel and clothing.
The “Financial Times” believes that this change is closely related to China’s continued promotion of cooperation in jointly building the “Belt and Road”.
Relevant cooperation not only promotes the export of goods such as steel, cement and heavy equipment, but also drives the operational management, digital monitoring, technical training, maintenance agreements, software upgrades and cloud service support required to operate ports, railways and power stations.
As the export added value of products such as electric vehicles, robots, drones, solar panels and wind power equipment continues to increase, the export of knowledge-intensive services has also grown.
These products are generally highly digitalized and often require support such as software upgrades, remote monitoring, cloud connections and technical maintenance after export.
In the field of artificial intelligence, China’s large open source models represented by DeepSeek are continuously expanding their overseas influence.
With lower costs and easier access to usage thresholds, Chinese large language models have received widespread attention in emerging markets such as Africa and the Middle East.
The increased application of relevant models may further drive demand for services such as predictive maintenance, data analysis and smart infrastructure management, thereby supporting the export of knowledge-intensive services.
The “Financial Times” believes that China’s foreign trade structure is undergoing new changes.
Compared with the past, which relied more on commodity exports, the proportion of technology, digital systems and supporting services in foreign trade is gradually increasing.
As China’s leading technology companies continue to be favored, more Chinese companies are accelerating their integration into global knowledge-intensive trade and are expected to further expand their growth space.
This series of changes shows that China’s foreign trade is constantly building new advantages and showing stronger competitiveness and development potential in the global trade pattern.
