With its traditional development dividends shrinking, China must develop its knowledge-intensive services to compete

China's $4.16 trillion import and export volume in 2013 means it is sure to replace the United States as the world's largest goods trader. However, it still lags far behind the US in the trade in services. Given that the focus of global economic competition has now shifted from the trade in goods to the trade in services, China should regard boosting its trade in services as an important way of raising its capability of participating in international competition and promoting the transformation of its trade from quantity to quality.

China's services trade continued its previous growth momentum and reached a record high in 2013, with the value of imports and exports of services reaching $484.7 billion in the first 11 months of the year, an increase of 12.4 percent on the same period the previous year, data from the Ministry of Commerce show. The full-year value is expected to exceed $520 billion, a growth rate of more than 11 percent year-on-year. But compared with developed countries, this volume is not only small in size it is also low in quality and there is still an enormous space for improvement in the future.