Employees wear masks at in Beijing's Zhongguancun software park. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

A list of the first batch of 12 national digital service export bases was released recently, with digital service exports pressing the fast-forward button, People's Daily Overseas Edition reported.

The list was co-released by the Ministry of Commerce, Cyberspace Administration of China and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, aiming to grasp opportunities in digital economic development, speed up digital service exports, and build these bases into key carriers for digital trade as well as a digital service export cluster.

The first batch of digital service export bases are: Zhongguancun Software Park, Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area, Dalian High-Tech Industrial Zone, Shanghai Pudong Software Park, China (Nanjing) Software Valley, Hangzhou High-Tech Zone (Binjiang) IoT Industrial Park, Hefei High-Tech Industry Development Zone, Xiamen Software Park, Qilu Software Park, Guangzhou Tianhe Central Business District, Hainan Eco-Software Park and Chengdu Tianfu Software Park.

Building digital service export bases will promote China's digital trade development and digital technology application, foster new business models of foreign trade, create new advantages for international competition, and improve the high-quality development of service trade, said Gao Feng, spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce.

Presently, the widely used digital technology plays an important role in the global fight against the coronavirus, while new models such as 5G, telecommuting, and online education and contract signing have witnessed burgeoning development.

The development of the digital economy covers the opening-up of digital services, digital technology application and much more, Pan Helin, executive director of the Digital Economy Academy of the Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in Hubei, told the newspaper.

The most significant contribution of establishing national digital service export bases is to build a digital industrial highland, Pan said, adding the move will further stimulate the development potential of the bases. In the future it will bring more outside support and accumulative effects, and also attract more talent.

Unlike traditional high-tech zones and digital industrial parks, building these bases should focus on digital service exports. Meanwhile, these bases are built not only to serve the domestic market, but also for the whole world. "So, from the beginning, we should set high standards, and strive to reach the level to draw up rules and standards for the sector," Pan said.