ADVANCED medical technologies, including telemedicine and robot-assisted surgery, are on display at a health care-themed exhibition that opened Friday at the ongoing 2021 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS).

Leading health-care enterprises and medical institutions from home and abroad are showcasing their latest innovations at the exhibition, which covers areas including smart health care, traditional medicine and COVID-19 prevention and control.

Health care is a widely discussed topic at this year’s CIFTIS, which opened Thursday in Beijing and will run through tomorrow. Besides the exhibition, more than 10 forums and conferences will be convened on the sidelines to discuss issues including international health-care cooperation and research and development services, according to the organizers.

As a massive exhibition and trading platform dedicated to trade in services, the CIFTIS has attracted more than 12,000 enterprises, up 52 percent from that in 2020. Representatives from 153 countries and regions signed up for the event, compared to 148 last year.

Statistics captured the encouraging performance of the services industry in China. In the first seven months of the year, China’s services trade rose 7.3 percent year on year to nearly 2.81 trillion yuan (US$435.04 billion).

China will further ease market access to the services sector, strengthen intellectual property rights protection, and foster a market-oriented, law-based business environment that is up to international standards, Vice Premier Han Zheng has said.

Foreign enterprises are welcome to invest and start businesses in China, Han said, adding that he hoped companies will seize the opportunity to explore the market, achieve mutual benefits and win-win results, and make greater contribution to China’s new development paradigm.

Catching the booming trend of digitalization of services trade, the 2021 CIFTIS features digital trade, tapping the potential of advanced digital technologies and functions.

In an effort to boost trade in digital services, the country for the first time included the burgeoning sector into the newly-formulated 14th five-year plan on the development of service trade.

With a view to opening up on a higher level, China announced a slew of new measures on the opening day of the CIFTIS, pledging to implement across the country a negative list for cross-border services trade, scale up support for the growth of the services sector in Belt and Road partner countries and share China’s technological achievements with the rest of the world.(SD-Xinhua)