Source: Sun Yat-sen Business School
Written by: Sun Yat-sen Business School
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

On November 5-8, 2014, Prof. LI Jiangfan (Director of China Center for Service Sector Research (CCSSR), Sun Yat-sen University) as the only Chinese scholar to be invited, attended the “2014 International Forum on Industrial Innovation and Service Sector Advancement: Changing Global Industrial Landscape and the Future Direction of the Korean Economy (Nov 6-7, 2014, Conrad Hotel, Seoul, Korea)”.
 
The “2014 International Forum on Industrial Innovation and Service Sector Advancement” was sponsored by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, and jointly held by the Korea Development Institute and the Korea Health Industry Development Institute. At the forum, more than 30 scholars from USA, Germany, China and South Korea were invited to make speech and more than 200 participants from South Korean academia, government departments and enterprises attended the meeting to share information on policy practices and business strategies of countries around the world and to seek future directions for national industrial development strategy.
 
One of the key problems of the meeting: What factors enable today’s advanced countries to enjoy high level of incomes at competitive service economies? What enabled Germany, an economy of strong manufacturing base, to build a strong service sectors? Why has Japan been laggard in comparison with Germany? What are the causes of the differences between Korea and other advanced OECD economies? Will today’s developing economies, in particular China, go through similar trajectory of industrial transformation, or will go distinctive paths of their own?

On November 6, at the session “Transition to the Service Economy: Experiences and Lessons”, Prof. LI Jiangfan delivered the speech "Development of Producer Services in China”. He firstly introduced the background of development of producer services in China. Secondly, according to the detailed statistics, several development characteristics are analyzed in the various aspects such as the proportion and scale, absolute development level, internal structure, contribution rate to GDP, labor productivity, investment return, foreign direct investment and so on. Thirdly, it summarized the development experiences of China’s producer services on theoretical innovation, development strategies, traction role, development of sub-sectors, supply innovation and expansion of openness level. Finally, it analyzed several problems of China’s producer services during the course of development, such as poor development level, structural imbalances between the traditional producer services and modern producer services, the weak capacity in innovation and the controlling power of industries. And he pointed out the development direction of the softening production factors, the growth of production factors in the form of services, that is, the substitution of soft production factors for solid factors of production, has the function for promoting the efficiency of national economy. Specially speaking, he considered that three kinds of tendency should be overcome when promoting the development of production factors in the form of service: The first tendency is to develop production factors in the form of services by the way of political movements with the same opinion. The second tendency is to develop production factors in the form of services by the same way of developing manufacturing sectors. The third tendency is to develop production factors in the form of services with the faith that “supply is everything”. The speech of Prof. LI aroused rather considerable interest of international experts and the participants.