China News Service, Beijing, September 10 (Chen Hang, Lin Hao) On September 9, a promotion conference for ASEAN service trade cooperation was held in Beijing. Gui, Jing, and Qiong jointly signed the "Gui, Jing, and Qiong Collaboratively Deepening ASEAN Service Trade Cooperation Initiative" and launched the construction of "jointly building an open cooperation highland for ASEAN service trade". It will build a cross-regional collaborative pattern of "Beijing R&D innovation, Hainan offshore empowerment, and Guangxi landing overseas" to jointly develop the ASEAN service trade market.
The picture shows Gui Jingqiong launching the joint construction of a highland for open cooperation in ASEAN services trade. Photo by Lin Hao
The promotion meeting was a special event for Guangxi, the guest province of China International Fair for Trade in Services 2026. It was co-sponsored by the People's Government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the People's Government of Beijing Municipality, and the People's Government of Hainan Province. With the theme of "Digital Connecting ASEAN·Trade Future—Building a New Open Cooperation Ecosystem for AI-Enabled Services Trade", it released the "China-ASEAN Digital Trade Development Report" and "Guangxi Digital Trade Cooperation Opportunities List" and other research results.
Wei Tao, Chairman of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, handed over four characteristic business cards of Guangxi to Chinese and foreign guests at the promotion conference: a location card facing ASEAN and the world; a canal card that connects rivers and seas and restructures the pattern; an AI business card that overtakes corners and is in the ascendant; and a unique and well-established industry card.
Wei Tao said that Guangxi is willing to work with all parties to take advantage of Beijing’s digital trade innovation advantages, Hainan Free Trade Port’s open policy advantages, and Guangxi’s frontier hub advantages facing ASEAN to build an integrated cooperation carrier for government-enterprise docking, industrial coupling, and project implementation, and serve more companies to expand ASEAN and even the global services trade market.
Assistant Minister of Commerce Yuan Xiaoming said that China is willing to work with all ASEAN parties to adhere to the concept of open cooperation and win-win, strengthen collaboration and docking in the field of service trade, encourage enterprises to expand practical cooperation in diverse fields such as digital culture and information technology, and jointly build a new highland for open cooperation in ASEAN's service trade.
Tang Wenhong, deputy mayor of Beijing, said that Beijing’s scientific and technological innovation intelligence and platform advantages, Guangxi’s frontier location and channel advantages adjacent to ASEAN, and the open policy of the Hainan Free Trade Port deeply overlap and complement each other. We are willing to work with colleagues from all walks of life to create a new ecosystem of open cooperation in digitally empowered service trade.
Zhao Feng, Vice Governor of Hainan Province, said that currently, the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port has entered a new stage of customs closure operation, and will give full play to open policies such as "zero tariffs" and "low tax rates", cross-border data services, and international digital consumption advantages to provide digital trade companies with professional services such as offshore operations, cross-border settlement, and data compliance.
The picture shows the signing ceremony of some service trade cooperation projects. Photo by Lin Hao
At this event, business representatives from China, Malaysia, Vietnam and other countries shared keynotes on topics such as trade digitization and AI-enabled cross-border cooperation, analyzing industry opportunities and exporting cooperation ideas based on real business practices.
In order to promote the leap in the level of cross-border trade, the "Innovation Practice Case Collection for ASEAN Service Trade", "Guidelines for the Development and Overseas Expansion of Vocational Skills Standards" and "2026 Cross-border E-commerce OPC Development Trend Report for ASEAN" were released at the event site, demonstrating the vitality of service trade.
At the meeting, six digital innovative products including the China (Guangxi)-ASEAN Smart Vocational Education Platform and the Kanshui River and Lake Smart Inspection Platform were unveiled to further enrich the supply of digital services to ASEAN.
The picture shows the Guangxi Comprehensive Pavilion at the Service Trade Fair. Photo by Lin Hao
This promotion meeting also led to the signing of a number of key cooperation projects on trade in services, promoting the transformation of cooperation consensus into implementable project results, and achieving "meetings to promote talks and talks to promote implementation."
At this CIFTIS, Guangxi appeared as the guest province for the first time. Through exhibitions, theme promotions, special docking, etc., it multi-dimensionally presented the fruitful results and new opportunities for open cooperation with ASEAN. The core exhibition hall, Guangxi Comprehensive Hall, with the theme of "Digital Intelligence Guimao, Linking ASEAN-China-ASEAN AI Cooperation Highland", focuses on displaying the cooperation results between Guangxi and ASEAN countries in the fields of artificial intelligence, cross-border computing power, digital cultural exchanges, etc., and simultaneously presents vivid practices such as the Pinglu Canal empowering service trade.
During the exhibition, Guangxi also held supporting activities such as digital service overseas docking activities and the "Meet Guangxi" cultural tourism exhibition fair. (over)
