Zhuhai's service trade and outsourcing industry boomed in 2021. The value of the city's service outsourcing industry grew by 19.14 percent year-on-year to $1.28 billion in 2021, ranking fifth in Guangdong Province, according to statistics of Zhuhai Municipal Bureau of Commerce.

The service trade industry is regarded as a new support for stable economic growth and new engine in driving foreign trade development. Twenty-five specific measures were launched by Zhuhai in May 2021 in its Working Plan for Promoting High-quality Development of Service Trade (2021-2025). They cover pressing issues such as expanding the scale of the industry and optimizing the service trade promotion system. 

Lovers Avenue in Zhuhai [File photo by Wu Changbin / Zhuhai Daily]

The Zhuhai Branch of People's Bank of China handled 21.79 billion yuan ($3.43 billion) of cross-border renminbi settlement in service trade for local companies in the first half of 2021 and helped two service trade companies handle full-caliber cross-border RMB financing of 170 million yuan ($27 million). 

The value of the Zhuhai-Hong Kong service outsourcing sector increased by 27.4 percent year-on-year to $123 million in 2021, while the value that between Zhuhai and Macao expanded by 81.22 percent year-on-year to $91.05 million.

A Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao-shared diversified dispute settlement mechanism on intellectual property was set up by Zhuhai Municipal Market Supervision Administration to provide public services for companies in handling foreign-related IP disputes. 

Moreover, a platform integrating service trade information in areas spanning industrial layout, policy, law, regulation, and procedure is available.

Zhuhai tops Guangdong in number of companies newly accredited as advanced technological-based service enterprises by the province in 2021, which stood at 13, accounting for 54 percent of Guangdong's total. Among these enterprises are MTU Maintenance Zhuhai and ALi Tech.