The Influence Of Digital Trade Rules On Service Export Sophistication

In the report of the 20 th Party Congress,General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed to promote the optimization and upgrading of trade in goods,innovate mechanisms for the development of trade in services and develop digital trade.It is clear that upgrading the quality of trade development is an inevitable choice for China to accelerate the building of a strong trade nation.At present,the cross-border flow of data and the extensive use of digital technology have expanded the digital boundary of trade in services,and also provided new opportunities and new impetus for the high-quality development of trade in services and the transformation and upgrading of service exports.The deep integration of digital trade and trade in services has posed new challenges to the current global trade rules system.The negotiation process of digital trade rules at the multilateral level,represented by the World Trade Organization(WTO),has been slow,and countries or regions have turned to the formulation of rules at the bilateral and regional trade agreement levels.The Asia-Pacific region,as the world’s economic and trade hub,is the region with the largest number and density of regional trade agreements globally,and has conducted rich exploration in the field of digital trade governance,resulting in digital trade provisions of varying standards.Therefore,exploring the relationship between digital trade rules in regional trade agreements and service exports based on the Asia-Pacific region can help promote the quality of China’s service exports and the negotiation process of regional digital trade rules.This paper constructs a system of indicators to quantify the depth of digital trade rules in RTAs based on the Regional Trade Agreement Electronic Commerce and Data Database(TAPED),and examines the mechanism of the depth of digital trade rules in RTAs on the technical complexity of service exports.This paper examines the impact of digital trade rules in RTAs on the technical complexity of services exports.This paper finds that the increase in the depth of digital trade rules in RTAs has a significant contribution to the increase in the technical complexity of services exports in the AsiaPacific region,and the positive impact on the technical complexity of exports of emerging services is greater,and the increase in the technical complexity of services exports from developed countries or regions is more obvious.In addition,there is heterogeneity in the effects of different types of provisions,with trade promotion provisions having a greater positive effect on the technical complexity of services exports.Finally,based on the results of the qualitative and quantitative studies,this paper puts forward three policy recommendations for China to promote the quality improvement of service exports and participate in negotiations on digital trade rules at the regional level.