Digital Trade Injects New Momentum Into Global Economic And Trade Cooperation
At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation are advancing by leaps and bounds. Digital trade, with data as the key production factor, digital services as the core, and digital ordering and delivery as the main features, is booming. It is gradually becoming a model for reshaping the trade structure, reconstructing international rules, and Reorganize the key forces of the "three-chain" layout and inject new momentum into global common development.
Digital trade continues to develop and become a new bright spot in global trade growth. With the in-depth application of digital technology in international trade, the scale of digital trade continues to expand. According to data from the World Trade Organization, global exports of digitally deliverable services will reach US$4.1 trillion in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 3.4%, accounting for 57.1% of global service exports. The scale of my country's digitally delivered services trade continues to expand. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, the scale of my country's digitally delivered services trade will reach 2.5 trillion yuan in 2022, an increase of 78.6% from five years ago; the scale of trade achieved through digital ordering has grown rapidly, and my country's cross-border e-commerce import and export will reach 2.1 in 2022. trillion yuan, an increase of more than 10 times compared with five years ago. In recent years, digital trade has demonstrated strong resilience and potential, becoming a new growth point for international trade. According to World Trade Organization statistics, global digital trade grew by 36.9% from 2019 to 2022, which is higher than the 12.9% of services trade and 31.0% of goods trade. Digital trade has become a new trend in global trade development and a new engine of growth.
The rapid development of digital trade has promoted in-depth adjustments to global economic and trade rules. On the one hand, existing rules do not fully cover digital trade. In terms of classification of trade objects, traditional trade is gradually digitized and new digital trade objects are born. The classification of traditional trade objects is no longer applicable to digital trade. In terms of intellectual property protection, with the increase in online transactions of digital products, intellectual property disputes over digital knowledge and service products are also increasing. However, the WTO's reform of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is relatively lagging behind and cannot cover it. And effectively solve the intellectual property issues of digital products. In terms of trade facilitation, some digital trade is characterized by small amounts, fragmentation, and multiple batches. However, traditional trade agreements do not set corresponding facilitation rules for payment of tariffs, tax exemptions, etc., which is not conducive to small and medium-sized enterprises to carry out small cross-border transactions. trading. On the other hand, there are deficiencies in existing rules. When it comes to cross-border data flows, the rules are controversial. At present, some regional organizations and countries have begun to formulate relevant rules for the free flow of cross-border data, but a global consensus has not yet been formed, hindering the formulation of global rules. In terms of data protection and openness, the global legal framework regarding the ownership, access rights and transactions of personal data has not yet been formed, and there are also large differences in the international community's views on the openness of public data, which may result in data being owned by different subjects. , it becomes more difficult to unify collection and development. When it comes to digital technology, rules are relatively lacking. The R&D and application of digital technology have given rise to new digital trade formats and models, and it is urgent to formulate relevant rules in areas such as ethics, technical standards, and digital space. In short, traditional international economic and trade rules cannot adapt to the development needs of digital trade and need to be reconstructed urgently.
Digital trade is accelerating to break through the original production organization method and reconstruct the global industrial chain, supply chain and value chain. First, the industrial chain layout is expanded and extended to the side. Digital trade strengthens the sharing of knowledge and technical elements among various industries through the flow of data, prompts industries to break through original spatial restrictions and find comparative advantages in larger regions, and promotes the global layout of industrial chains. At the same time, digital trade uses platforms as the main carrier to promote the platformization, networking and in-depth service-oriented industrial forms, and the industrial chain extends to side connections. Second, the supply chain efficiency is improved and the downstream is shortened. Digital trade reduces transaction costs in each link, allowing core supply chain enterprises to refine their division of labor and improve supply chain efficiency. The disintermediation of digital trade has also brought the distance between core enterprises and final consumers closer, and shortened the downstream chain. The third is the internationalization and openness of value chain R&D. Digital trade has given birth to new models such as cloud outsourcing, crowdsourcing, platform subcontracting, and cloud crowdfunding, promoting the transformation of the R&D link from a traditional closed, independent model to an open, cooperative, networked, and distributed model. R&D crowdsourcing has become a trend. At the same time, R&D is no longer limited to the enterprise side. Through digital technology, buyers can also transform from pure consumers to collaborators and participate in the product R&D and design process.
Digital trade continues to enrich production and lifestyle, becoming a new driving force for global common development. Digital trade allows more small, medium and micro enterprises to share the market. Traditional international trade is more occupied by large enterprises with a higher degree of internationalization, and small, medium and micro enterprises are less involved. Digital trade promotes more small, medium and micro enterprises to integrate into the international market. First, digital trade platforms make cross-border trade more convenient, allowing small, medium and micro enterprises to directly accept small-scale orders from all over the world. Second, digital technology has made many productive service links more separable. Services originally provided by one enterprise can now be subcontracted to many small, medium and micro enterprises based on different characteristics. Third, digital trade promotes the development of traditional large-scale homogeneous batch production into flexible, customized and personalized manufacturing, requiring many small, medium and micro enterprises to provide intermediate services and processing and manufacturing.
It can be seen that digital trade allows more residents to obtain a variety of products and services. The digital trade platform uses the global network to connect more residents, bringing global products and services to every corner of the world to meet residents' daily needs. At the same time, the new generation of information technology represented by big data, mobile Internet, Internet of Things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc. has created more new services and products to further enrich residents' lives. Digital trade allows enterprises and residents to share technological dividends and promote common development of the global economy and society.