The Impact Of The Depth Of Free Trade Agreement On China’s Service Trade Exports

Entering the "14th Five Year Plan" period,a new stage of development has been ushered in.The construction of free trade zones not only needs to increase in quantity,but also presents a trend of continuous expansion in depth and breadth in content,covering topics that continue to extend to the field of service trade.The huge deficit in service trade has always been a problem hindering China’s economic development.Currently,the deficit is still expanding.In addition,there are still problems such as unbalanced structural development and weak innovation and development."The 14 th Five Year Plan for the Development of Service Trade" fully affirms the important role of service trade in China’s economic growth,and puts forward new requirements for the development of service trade.Therefore,exploring the impact of the depth of free trade agreements on service trade exports has far-reaching significance in optimizing the structure of service trade and changing the trend of expanding trade deficits.This article first analyzes the current situation of China’s service trade import and export scale and industry structure,and compares the heterogeneity of the terms of the FTA signed by China,as well as the depth of coverage and binding force of the "WTO+" clause and the "WTO-X" clause.Subsequently,the impact mechanism of the deepening of FTA on service trade exports is discussed from two aspects: improving the international service trade environment and reducing the cost of service trade.Further,this article selects the export data of China’s service trade to 19 contracting countries from 2005 to 2018,and uses the extended gravity model to further classify the terms based on Sun Yuhong’s(2021)research.It empirically studies the impact of the total terms and the depth of various terms on China’s service trade exports.The research results show that the improvement of the overall depth of FTA has significantly promoted the export of China’s service trade,and its promotion effect is reflected in the depth of coverage and binding force of FTA.Further distinguishing the categories of clauses,it is found that the deepening of "WTO+" clauses,"WTO-X" clauses,and core clauses have also promoted the export of China’s service trade,but the promotion effect of "WTO-X" clauses is stronger than that of "WTO+" clauses.The promotion effect of core clauses is stronger than that of "WTO+" clauses,indicating that the four "WTO-X" clauses in the core clauses can further enhance the promotion effect of "WTO+" clauses.Based on the results of empirical research,this paper proposes to promote the signing of free trade agreements with more countries and give play to geographical advantages;Upgrade the signed free trade agreements with a focus on "WTO-X" clauses,pay attention to the promotion effect of "WTO-X" clauses on service trade exports,and further expand the coverage of the topic;Develop emerging service trade,achieve innovative development of service trade,and balance and optimize the export structure of China’s service industry;Reasonably select partner countries in free trade zones,pay attention to policy recommendations such as their economic development level,and promote the construction of a global network of high standard free trade zones.