Cheng Shi and Zhang Hongxu: As for China, the countercurrent brings challenges, while the downstream brings opportunities. Relying on its own market size and data element endowment, China has the ability and opportunity to form new comparative advantages in multiple fields of service trade.
"When the setting sun spreads over the water, half of the river is rustling and half of the river is red." The once in a century COVID-19 caused an epic supply shock, which not only caused a heavy blow to the process of globalization, but also triggered a profound change in the structure of globalization. On the one hand, supply chain bottlenecks inevitably lead to the reverse flow of global commodity trade; On the other hand, the accelerated evolution of the digital economy has stimulated the globalization of service trade. The upstream and downstream of globalization are intertwined and then ebb and flow, shifting the human economic world towards a new Pareto improvement. The technological revolution has added value to the globalization of service trade in two dimensions: firstly, the transferability, sharability, and preservation of big data in different spatial states have broken down spatial barriers between service trade departments; Secondly, the outbreak of the epidemic has promoted the widespread application of remote work and artificial intelligence technology in the field of service trade, and the recognition of institutions and the maturity of technology will promote the global service trade to climb up the ladder. For China, countercurrent brings challenges, while downstream brings opportunities. Relying on its own market size and data element endowment, China has the ability and opportunity to form new comparative advantages in multiple areas of service trade. Commodity trade will evolve from "low-speed globalization" to "accelerated regionalization" There is no doubt that the global COVID-19 outbreak has seriously damaged the global supply chain system. Due to the global labor shortage caused by the epidemic, the value chain of commodity trade centered on the manufacturing industry has suffered significant impacts from various aspects such as production, processing, logistics, delivery, and retail. Although supply chain bottlenecks have been further repaired compared to last year, under the stimulation of the global geopolitical crisis, the degree of repair of supply chain bottlenecks has fallen far short of market expectations. This also explains why the vast majority of countries suffering from high inflation have repeatedly been hit by price shocks from durable goods, and durable goods inflation has further penetrated into the prices of a wide range of service industries. In the medium and long term, the "globalization" pattern of global commodity trade has gradually receded due to the intensification of energy crisis and geopolitical conflicts caused by COVID-19 and geopolitical risks. Actually, in the08After the financial crisis in, the globalization process of global commodity trade has slowed down. This can be seen from the total imports and exports of the United States, China, Japan, and IndiaGDPThe specific gravity of can be seen. This change actually reflects the gradual disintegration of the global vertical collaborative division of labor model in the post financial crisis era due to structural changes in global economic factors, such as aging population, declining natural interest rates, and increasing global wealth inequality. However, this round of COVID-19 epidemic and geopolitical impact further substantially exacerbated the past40The reversal of the global pattern of commodity trade in recent years. We describe the new changes in the current global goods trade market as the evolution of the trade pattern from "slow globalization" to "accelerated regionalization". The division of labor and cooperation between different countries based on the comparative advantages of various factors has evolved into independent and competitive value chain systems developed by each region (with China, the United States, and Europe as the core). The new global pattern of commodity trade is bound to lead to an overall upward increase in the transaction costs of commodity trade on the global value chain.
chart1: Global trade shareGDPproportion % Data source: World Bank and our organization Service trade will usher in a new round of globalization Although the globalization pattern of commodity trade has slowed down, the opportunity for globalization of service trade may be approaching. Specifically, despite the severe impact of the pandemic on the global catering and tourism service industriesBaldwin (2022) According to the latest statistics, in addition to catering, transportation, and sightseeing tourism, global trade in other services (accounting for approximately60%）In recent years, there has been an accelerated expansion trend. Actually, in the08After the financial crisis in, commercial services have shown a rapid global expansion trend.2020In, the proportion of commercial services in service and commodity trade has climbed to20%。 From the perspective of the main exporting countries of service trade, in addition to developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Japan7The total value of national service exports accounts for approximately50%）。 Among emerging market countries, China, South Korea, India, and Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam are also expanding their share in global service trade. Among them,2020The proportion of China's service trade in global service trade exports has climbed to5% (Ranked # 1 globally6Bit). From the perspective of the scope covered by service trade, in addition to traditional transportation and sightseeing tourism, computer, communication, and information services account for the largest proportion, followed by management consulting services, research and development services, advertising design, etc. Replacing trade in goods with trade in services08The rapid expansion after the financial crisis in mainly benefited from the new round of Digital Revolution in the world. Due to the vigorous development of digital technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, the deep marketization of information and data that can be read and stored on a large scale has been approved by the government and legal departments. As a result, service trade can break through spatial barriers through real-time data sharing and efficiently transmit data point-to-point on a global scale. The core of digital sharing is information sharing, which is the value creation of the service industry. From a macroeconomic perspective, if the global trade in services can accelerate the realization of "remote labor" in the future, it may help improve income inequality among some countries, such as India or Pakistan, which has utilized its advantages in software and communication technology to provide a large number of online labor services for the UK's communication and finance industries. For the UK, this can actually be seen as a form of salary arbitrage in the service sector. For Pakistan, the average hourly salary for communication online service personnel in the UK is13GBP, which is much higher than the average hourly wage of most local Pakistani workers in a week, meaning that these "remote workers" can earn over19,000Income in pounds, while per capita annual income in Pakistan is only less than1500pound. With the further development of artificial intelligence technology from the field of perception to the field of cognition and interactive creation, it can be seen that global service trade will further accelerate globalization due to digital technology in the future.
chart2: Import and export of other global commercial services trade (Millions of US dollars) Data source:WTOAnd our organization, Note: Orange for imports and blue for exports China can explore its advantages in multiple areas of service trade With the gradual widespread acceptance of remote work and online services after the epidemic, more and more enterprises have gained a more direct and universal cultural recognition of virtual work, which makes it easier for the new generation of enterprises to accept virtual work or remote services. However, in order to further accelerate the globalization of service trade, there are still some institutional and technical barriers that need to be further broken through. For example, in China, how to tax import and export services, and whether it is necessary to distinguish between intermediate services and final services in order to clarify tax system arrangements. In addition, although digital technology has greatly reduced barriers to service trade, artificial intelligence is still in its early stages in the fields of perception technology and interactive creation. To achieve a better immersive experience in the field of service trade, it is not only necessary to provide underlying support for big data transmission, sharing, and storage. At the same time, future service trade needs to rely on data to break more spatial limitations in perception and creation, thereby enhancing or even creating the interaction and experience of different objects in different spaces in service trade. Although the barriers to trade in services are more complex from a technical perspective compared to trade in goods, trade in services is not limited to specific goods and physical restrictions. Therefore, compared to goods, with sufficient digital technology support, trade in services theoretically has almost unlimited possibilities for free expansion. Taking China as an example, in the face of the severe reality of further accelerating population aging, China's service trade field may see more online service personnel from emerging markets such as Southeast Asia in the future. This is like in the past15A large number of overseas workers from Africa came to Guangzhou to engage in commodity trade years ago. In the future, the Chinese market will attract a large number of online junior office workers from different countries or regions in various service trade fields such as software development, compliance investigation, copywriting design, advertising creativity, housing services, financial analysis, etc. On the contrary, adhering to the policy of opening up to the outside world, expanding service trade, and allowing more service workers in China to participate in the international service trade market is essentially a way to broaden employment paths. Referring to the European job market, the current service trade jobs in Europe account for two-thirds of the total labor market jobs in the eurozone. In recent years, countries such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Ireland have exported a large number of online service trade providers to other global markets. These services are based on the local market but provide specialized remote office services in different fields. From the perspective of economic growth, developing service trade is more important than commodity trade.Freeman （2018）On theOECDNational research has found that mostOECDIn the process of accelerating the country's economic transformation into developed countries, intermediate service products (service inputs) have an impact onGDPThe contribution of growth (total output) will accelerate and be the average of intermediate manufactured goods (manufacturing inputs)2Times. Currently, among the major developed countries in Europe and America, the proportion of services as intermediate products in the overall economic output is about that of manufactured goods2-4Times. Therefore, we believe that as China overtakes in the field of digital technology, the Chinese market may rely on its own manufacturing and commodity trade advantages to extend and develop a group of service trade providers with certain professional capabilities. according toBaldwin and Okubo (2022) Based on the two dimensions of remote office capability and automation technology, we have conducted a classification evaluation of global service trade work. We further consider China's current factor advantages and believe that China can form its core advantages in the following service trade fields (as shown in the table below). surface1China's scalable service trade industry (with automation and high remote office capabilities)
Note: This table is based onBaldwin and Okubo (2022) Based on remote office capabilities and automation, we have constructed a service trade career table and further screened it based on China's actual situation (mainly considering institutional factors and industry barriers). Although the selected industries are limited, referring to the US market, only the capacity of these industries to absorb employment is close to1One billion people. (Author's introduction: Cheng Shi is the Chief Economist of ICBC International; Zhang Hongxu is a Senior Economist of ICBC International. This article only represents the author's viewpoint.) |
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