BEIJING — China will introduce a negative list for cross-border trade in services by the end of this year in order to promote the institutional opening-up in the services sector, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said on Sept 3.

The country has seen robust services demand and relatively rapid services imports, MOC official Xian Guoyi told a press conference.

He said China will continue to open the services sector to the outside world, import more high-quality services, actively expand service exports, encourage high-quality services to go global, and enhance the international competitiveness of the country's services.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has led to sharp declines of services trade in many countries since March this year, it has also created new opportunities for digital trade, new service consumption patterns, and stimulated new drivers of growth for consumption upgrade, said Xian.

The MOC will coordinate epidemic prevention and control with the development of trade in services, seize the opportunity to develop digital services trade and integrate services with the manufacturing industry, deepen the opening-up of the service sector, and promote the high-quality development of the country's trade in services.