Chengdu Session of China (Hong Kong) International Service Trade Fair 2011, co-sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce and Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), was held in Chengdu, Sichuan, on May 27. Qiu Hong, Assistant Minister of Commerce, Fang Xiaofang, Vice Chairman of the CPPCC Sichuan Provincial Committee, and Lin Tianfu, Executive Director of HKTDC addressed the Fair respectively.

Assistant Minister Qiu Hong pointed out that in 2010, the economy of the Mainland and Hong Kong recovered from the impacts of the international financial crisis and realized recovery growth. The status of Hong Kong as the Mainland’s largest partner in service trade was further consolidated. According to the statistics by the Ministry of Commerce, service export to Hong Kong amounted to US$59.38 billion and service import from Hong Kong amounted to US$33.78 billion in 2010, up by 59.7% and 28.4% respectively. Bilateral service trade accounted for 25.7% of the Mainland’s total import & export of service. There is great cooperation potential in various sectors of the Mainland-HK service trade.

Qiu stated that the year 2011 is the first year of China’s 12th Five-Year Plan, and 12th Five-Year Plan is a golden time for the development of China’s service trade. The central government attached great importance to the development of the service trade. The 12th Five-Year Plan clearly required vigorously developing the service trade, promoting its export, expanding its opening up, and improving its ratio in China’s foreign trade. Enterprises of the Mainland Hong Kong should improve mutual understanding, deepen the cooperation, and realize the mutual benefits and win-win outcomes by extensive exchanges so as to make new contributions to the common prosperity of the Mainland and Hong Kong.

China (Hong Kong) International Service Trade Fair is a cooperation and exchange platform co-established by the Ministry of Commerce and HKTDC with the purpose of promoting the services industry of China to go global. It is held every year in Hong Kong since 2007 and added a session in the Mainland from 2010. The Chengdu session will be themed “opening up, innovation, cooperation, mutual benefit——service trade enterprises in Hong Kong and mainland join hands to seek development”. More than 500 representatives comprised of officials from the government and businessmen from the Mainland and Hong Kong attended the theme forum of the Fair.