Service trade is an important component of international trade and plays an increasingly important role in promoting international economic and trade cooperation. In recent years, China's service trade has maintained rapid growth, reaching a new level of trillions of dollars, but overall its international competitiveness is still relatively insufficient. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to innovate and enhance trade in services. Currently, international economic and trade development is facing both the risks of rising unilateralism and trade protectionism, as well as significant opportunities brought about by a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. We should fully leverage the role of trade in services in stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment, solidly promote innovation and improvement in trade in services, continuously tap into potential, and stimulate new driving forces for the development of trade in services. Innovation is a new exploration and breakthrough in the development mode, institutional policies, and other aspects of service trade, and is a fundamental prerequisite for improving the level of service trade development. Enhancement is the purpose and result of promoting innovative development of service trade, and it is the concentrated indicator of the effectiveness of innovative development of service trade. Innovate the development mechanism of service trade, require the implementation of service trade opening commitments and related rules in multilateral, bilateral, and regional economic and trade arrangements, actively connect with international high standard economic and trade rules, and orderly promote the gradient opening of cross-border service trade based on the negative list of cross-border service trade; Cultivate and strengthen new driving forces for the digital and green development of service trade, enhance the international development capability of professional services, and explore the promotion of "bonded+service trade" development; Actively expanding bilateral and regional cooperation mechanisms for service trade and digital trade, further enriching international cooperation networks and channels for service trade, and continuously optimizing the open cooperation environment. To improve the development level of service trade, it is required to promote the orderly opening of the Internet, culture and other fields, and expand the pilot opening of telecommunications, medical care, education, finance and other fields; Implement the Action Plan for Standardization of Trade in Services and enhance the level of standardization in trade in services; Explore the growth potential of traditional service sectors, cultivate new driving forces for the development of emerging service sectors, expand the import of high-quality services, and increase the proportion of service trade in the total scale of foreign trade; Accelerate the development of knowledge intensive service trade and further increase the proportion of knowledge intensive service trade; Actively utilizing innovative services such as digital technology and artificial intelligence to narrow the trade deficit in traditional service areas, promoting the export of characteristic advantage services, supporting industry leaders to enhance their ability to allocate factor resources and layout market networks globally, and leading and driving the improvement of international competitiveness in service trade. Innovating and enhancing service trade is of great significance for accelerating the construction of a strong trading nation, expanding high-level opening up to the outside world, and expanding new increments in foreign trade development. With the deepening of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, international division of labor has evolved from inter industry division to intra industry and intra product division, forming cross-border industrial chains, supply chains, and value chains. The interdependence between international investment, commodity trade, and service trade is evident, and service trade has become an important component of international trade and an important area of international economic and trade cooperation. China is a major trading partner of over 150 countries and regions, having signed 23 free trade agreements with 30 countries and regions, and established service trade cooperation with over 200 countries and regions. At present, the innovation and application of cutting-edge technologies in fields such as digital economy, artificial intelligence, and new energy are accelerating, and new formats, models, and industries are constantly emerging. The global innovation landscape, economic and trade structure, and governance system are undergoing profound adjustments. To achieve the transformation from a trading powerhouse to a trading powerhouse, we must seize opportunities, accelerate the digitalization, intelligence, and greening of service trade, promote the coordinated development of goods trade and digital trade, shape new driving forces and advantages for foreign trade development, and consolidate the foundation of building a trading powerhouse. In recent years, China has actively aligned with high standard international economic and trade rules, driven by both agreement opening and independent opening, and launched a series of new measures for opening up. It has laid out the construction of a "one pilot, one demonstration, and multi base" service trade development platform, formed rich institutional innovation achievements, opened up new space for the development of service trade, and accelerated the construction of a new open economic system. The negative list of restrictions on foreign investment access in the national version has been reduced to 29, and the application of unilateral visa free and transit visa free policies has been expanded to 46 and 55 countries respectively. Innovating and enhancing service trade is an important path to expanding high-level opening up to the outside world. In the future, China will continue to reduce negative lists such as foreign investment access and cross-border service trade, orderly expand the opening up of commodity markets, service markets, capital markets, and labor markets, and promote the improvement of high-level opening up systems and mechanisms. Currently, the external environment is undergoing profound and complex changes, and the international economic and trade order is severely impacted. At the same time, the rapid development of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence is changing the traditional mode of service trade and giving rise to new types of service trade. The games "Black Myth: Wukong" and "Ne Zha: The Magic Child Roars in the Sea" have driven the service trade of games, movies, and other industries to go global. "China Tour" and "China Purchase" continue to heat up, and the hotspots and highlights in the field of service trade continue to emerge. In the first half of this year, China's total import and export of services reached 3887.26 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.0%. Among them, exports amounted to 1688.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.0%; Imports amounted to 2198.96 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.2%. Seizing important opportunities such as the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, the expansion and quality improvement of the service industry, and the accelerated release of domestic service consumption potential, we will focus on promoting the growth of service trade scale, structural optimization, efficiency improvement, and strength enhancement, which will contribute greater increment to the development of China's foreign trade. To seize new opportunities and respond to new challenges, we must rely on expanding openness and innovation driven development, stimulate new driving forces for the development of service trade, and quickly elevate the development of service trade to a new level. Strengthen the integration and linkage development of trade in services and the service industry. Promote the coordinated development of trade and industry, closely link the layout of service trade development with the planning of related industries such as the service industry, and better leverage policy synergy. Promote the integrated development of service trade and goods trade, rely on comprehensive bonded zones and other areas to carry out research and development, testing, maintenance, storage and display of cultural relics and art, and support manufacturing enterprises in biomedicine, aircraft, automobiles, engineering machinery and other industries to provide internationally competitive professional and comprehensive services. Promote mutual promotion of international trade and investment, guide foreign investment in modern service industries, support service trade enterprises to participate in the construction of overseas economic and trade cooperation parks, encourage foreign-invested enterprises to strengthen their domestic headquarters functions, support investment in the construction of overseas research and development centers, data centers, marketing centers, and delivery centers, and enhance their ability to cooperate in foreign services. Promote digital, intelligent, and green transformation. Strengthen the innovation of key core technologies in the digital field, accelerate the development of foreign trade in communication, Internet of Things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, satellite navigation and other fields. Encourage the exploration of integrated development models of digitalization, intelligence, and greening based on local industrial characteristics, and vigorously develop new forms and models of service trade. Relying on high-level open platforms such as Hainan Free Trade Port, Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone Lingang New Area, and Hengqin Guangdong Macao Deep Cooperation Zone, we will accelerate the development of international data service industry and new offshore international trade business. Give full play to the pilot function of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive experimental zone, extend and optimize the service chain of digital platforms, and enhance the international competitiveness of digital platforms. Developing green technologies and green service trade, researching and formulating a green service import and export guidance catalog, using digital methods to carry out product traceability, testing, certification, etc., promoting the construction of a green technology support system and supply chain, expanding the export of competitive green low-carbon technologies, and encouraging the import of urgently needed energy-saving, energy-saving, water-saving, carbon reduction, environmental protection, ecological governance and other technologies and services domestically. Optimize the construction of the platform system for open development of service trade. Aligning with the national regional development strategy layout, improving the service trade open platform, and upgrading and constructing a number of national service trade innovation and development demonstration zones. Based on the actual development of service trade and regional characteristics, we will further improve the management system of service trade, innovate the supervision mode of service trade, deepen the opening up of the service sector to the outside world, play a comprehensive integrated innovation role, and create a number of benchmark cities for service trade. By relying on pilot free trade zones and comprehensive pilot demonstrations of expanding opening-up in the service industry, we will increase our efforts in institutional innovation, explore and enhance the alignment with international high standard economic and trade rules in the service sector standards and regulations, and improve the level of development of service trade openness. Organize the China International Fair for Trade in Services, support the construction of legal service centers and international commercial arbitration centers in cities with conditions, and continuously enrich the open platform for service trade. Continuously building a mutually beneficial and win-win service trade cooperation network. Deepen the implementation of the Global Partnership Network for Trade in Services, deepen cooperation areas, innovate cooperation mechanisms, and optimize international layout. Strengthen risk assessment and response, consolidate key partners, and actively explore emerging markets. We will strengthen cooperation in trade in services with countries that jointly build the "the Belt and Road", expand areas of cooperation under BRICS, SCO and other mechanisms, and continue to expand multilateral, bilateral and regional cooperation in trade in services. Relying on multilateral and bilateral cooperation mechanisms and platforms, guide the utilization of resource advantages in various regions, and support the construction of service trade international cooperation parks in areas with conditions. Deepen and jointly build the "the Belt and Road" countries to jointly study and formulate standards, rules and systems in trade and investment facilitation, intellectual property rights and other fields. Promote the formulation of international land transportation trade rules, strengthen international cooperation on digitalization of ports and shipping, trade digitalization and other related standards, and help improve the quality and level of international economic and trade cooperation. (Xinhua News Agency) Author: Li Xilin (Researcher at the Institute of International Trade in Services, Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Commerce)