An realistic study on the assessment system of international competitiveness of service trade using fuzzy-analytic network process

Abstract

The Belt and Road (abbreviated as B&R) creates opportunities for the economy and trade development and the improvement of national relations of the Belt and Road countries. Development of service trade plays an important role in the Belt and Road. Henan Province takes the opportunity of B&R to develop the international service industry and makes some achievements. In the new era of development, analyzing the trade competitiveness of international service in Henan Province under the background of the Belt and Road is of great significance to help Henan Province recognize its own strengths and weaknesses in service trade development and make targeted improvements. Studies have shown that the share of international market, revealed, advantages of comparative competitiveness trade and service trade openness of service trade in Henan Province under the background of the Belt and Road are constantly improving, but the overall development level is still low and slow development occurs. We utilize the concept of fuzzy embedded along with Analytic Network Process (ANP) which makes it suitable for managing vagueness of the linguistics information of assessment system. Therefore, in order to further improve the international competitiveness of service trade in Henan Province, it is necessary to optimize the international market share, competitiveness, and degree of openness. Specifically, it is necessary to transform and upgrade the traditional service trade industry, continue to expand the breadth and depth of service trade openness, strengthen the talent team building to improve the quality of employees, and promote the brand construction of service industry to enhance the industry’s development potential.

Keywords

The belt and road henan province service trade international competitiveness fuzzy analytic network process (ANP)

1 Introduction

China is open nowadays, so is China’s economy. China’s economy is integrated into the world economic system in various forms with the help of multiple platforms. The Belt and Road provides a new platform for China’s economy. As a central province, Henan takes advantage of B&R to actively promotion of development trade international. Henan Province has a rich force of labor. During past years, the scientific and technological strength and service innovation have been continuously improved, which creates the basic situations for enhancing services in trade. However, as an inland province in China, Henan still faces many challenges to promote the international development of service trade [1]. For Henan, to formulate the correct international strategy for service trade, it must first clarify its own international competitiveness. As an old saying goes, “To know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat.” Therefore, it is of great practical value to explore the international competitiveness of service trade for Henan Province under the background of the Belt and Road. A decision forming tool which have multi criteria, ANP handles in coordinating different methodologies of trade required to arrive at correctly handling decisions, making every trade makers to take part in procedure for an significant decision making model through the model and utilization of fuzzy model. Here the analyzed multiple fuzzy attribute decision making (MADM) models to handle with a trade estimation issues. Triangular fuzzy number (TFN) were utilized to quantify the insight evaluated by five different concepts utilized to assess the performance of insight. TFNs uses different linguistic variables and their weighting AHP model for estimating the weights preference for every attributes. Ravi et al. [6] mentioned that ANP is a significant decision making methodology that clarifies the interdependencies, deviates the dependencies as quantitative output and simultaneously gives feedback around and amongst the elements cluster.

2 Present situation and influencing factors of service trade improvement in Henan Province below the contextual of the Belt and Road

2.1 Present situation of service trade development in Henan Province under the background of the Belt and Road

In 2013, Chairman Xi Jinping mentioned the concept of Economic of Silk Road Belt for the first time in a speech, and it received wide discussion and recognition. The proposal of the Belt and Road has greatly promoted economic and trade cooperation between the B&R countries and provinces. Henan Province, as an important link along the route, actively participates in the cooperation. Taking advantage of the development opportunities of the Belt and Road, Henan Province has vigorously promoted the development of its service industry and achieved a series of results. Figure 1 shows the service trade development data of Henan Province. The data indicate that since 2013, the total service trade amount of Henan Province had been continuously increasing, especially after 2016. For example, the total amount is US $9.73 billion in 2016, and it reaches US $12 billion by 2018. However, the analysis of the absolute value data show that the current absolute service trade value of Henan Province is still relatively low. Taking 2018 as an example, it only accounts for about 1.56% of the national total service trade of US $5.24 trillion. This gap is much sharper compared to the proportion of Henan’s GDP to the national GDP and the proportion of the Henan’s population to the national population [2 –5].

Fig. 1

Service trade development data of Henan Province (2013 –2018) (Billion US $). Source: Implementation Opinions of Henan Provincial People’s Government on Accelerating the Development of Service Trade and Henan Statistical Yearbook 2018.

2.2 Influencing factors of international competitiveness of service trade in Henan Province under the background of the Belt and Road

There are many factors that affect the development of service trade and its international competitiveness in Henan Province, and the influence of external macro factors under the Background of the Belt and Road has been further strengthened. This paper will discuss these factors from two perspectives [7]

2.2.1 Internal factors

At the philosophical level, no matter what changes occur in the external environment, internal causes are the fundamental factors that affect the development of matters. In situation of Road and Belt, the international competitiveness of service trade in Henan Province depends primarily on the internal factors [8 –11]. The main internal factors include:

First, the number of employees in the tertiary industry. The enhancement of trade in service is inseparable from the contribution of every laborer, and it is the contribution of many employees that enhances the overall international competitiveness of service trade in Henan Province. Table 1 lists the main economic development and employment data of Henan Province. We can see that the number of employees in the tertiary industry in Henan Province is growing increasingly since 2013 from the data in the table. The growth from 2014 to 2015 is the quickest. The population employed in the tertiary industry accounts for 32.04% of the total employed population of Henan Province in 2018, surpassing the secondary industry but lower than the primary industry [12]. It can be seen that the number of employees in the tertiary industry in Henan Province continues to grow and will grow further. Its absolute value is lower than that of the primary industry, so the number of employees in the tertiary industry needs to be further expanded.

Table 1
Main economic development and employment data of henan province (2013 –2018)

Year GDP per capita (RMB) Employee of tertiary industry (million) FDI (billion US $)

2013 34304 17.89 –

2014 37166 18.73 14.9

2015 39209 20.07 16.1

2016 42341 20.88 17.0

2017 46674 21.68 17.2

2018 50152 22.77 17.9

Year	GDP per capita (RMB)	Employee of tertiary industry (million)	FDI (billion US $)
2013	34304	17.89	–
2014	37166	18.73	14.9
2015	39209	20.07	16.1
2016	42341	20.88	17.0
2017	46674	21.68	17.2
2018	50152	22.77	17.9

Source: Henan Statistical Yearbook (2013 –2018).

Second, GDP per capita. With the increase of people’s income, their needs for dressing, spiritual consumption, and education in addition to the conventional needs for food and housing will further expand. For example, with the increase of income, the total number of Henanese travelled overseas rises rapidly, which is the indirect import of tourism service. At the same time, the increase of income can attract support to science, education, culture and health, thereby enlarging the output scale of intellectual service products [13 –16]. It can be seen from Table 1 that the GDP per capita in 2013 is 34,304 RMB, a cumulative increase of 15,848 RMB in six years, with an ordinary.

Annual growth rate of 7.70%, slightly higher than the national average growth rate over the same period. This shows that in terms of GDP per capita, although Henan Province has preserved a continuous growth trend and the average growth rate is greater than the national average; however, both the absolute value and the growth rate are not high, and great gap still exists compared with the major economic provinces in East China [17].

Third, local government policies and infrastructure environment. The policies of local government directly affect the improvement of the international competitiveness of service trade in Henan Province, and the development of service trade has higher requirements for the infrastructure and is directly affected by the infrastructure environment. At present, in the context of the new normal and supply-side structural reform, Henan Province has issued a series of policies in the Implementation Opinions of the Henan Provincial People’s Government on Accelerating the Development of Service Trade to promote the enhancement of trade in service. As a type of industry that can optimize the economic structure, drive the employment and increase the resident’s income, the development of service trade is strongly supported by the local government. In addition, in recent years, Henan’s investment in the field of infrastructure construction has continued to expand, and the construction of transportation center and service trade transaction center with Zhengzhou as the core have achieved significant results. Therefore, the current infrastructure environment is constantly being optimized [18, 19].

2.2.2 External factors

The development of matters is also related to the external environment. The quality of the external environment can directly affect the competitiveness in service trade in Henan Province. The main external factors include:

First, the national macro policy and economic environment. National policies directly affect the economic activities of the provinces. At present, the central government encourages the regions to carry out economic activities in accordance with local conditions, and at the same time, encourages the regions to carry out supply-side reform and strengthen foreign trade. Therefore, the current macro policy is conducive to enhancement of trade in service in Henan Province. From the macroeconomic perspective, China achieved an output value of 90.03 trillion RMB in 2018, and the macroeconomic growth also reaches a relatively stable level of about 7%. The development of the macroeconomy has provided a supportive environment for the development of service trade in Henan Province [20 –23].

Second, foreign direct investment (FDI). The improvement of the competitiveness of Henan’s service trade by foreign direct investment is mainly achieved through capital, management and technical support. For example, the entry of foreign capital can drive the technological upgrading of certain service industries, thereby enhancing the technological competitiveness of service products in the international market. Table 1 also lists the FDI data of Henan Province from 2014 to 2018 [24 –26]. From the data in the table, it can be seen that the scale of foreign direct investment in Henan has continued to expand. Up to 2018, it has reached US $17.9 billion. However, judging from the relative growth rate, the scale of FDI attracted by Henan Province still increases slowly, so further improvement is needed.

3 Empirical analysis

3.1 Measurement of international marketplace share (MS) of service trade

The international market share (MS) reflects the proportion of a certain industry or product of the tested subject in the international market. The calculation is shown in Formula (1). The MS value is between 0 and 1. The larger the value is, the huge share of international market for testing object and healthiest market lowness are. $MS = \frac{X_{i}}{\sum_{i = 1}^{n} X_{i}} (n = 1, 2, 3 \dots \dots 31)$ (1)

In the formula, X_i represents the import and export scale of the i-th province in an industry or a field, and n represents the total number of subjects. Since China has 31 provincial administrative units except Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, the maximum value of n is 31.

Combined with the export and import scale of China’s annual facility trade, and taking Hubei Province in Central China and the average value of each province in Central China as comparison subjects, we can get the data shown in Fig. 2:

Fig. 2

MS Values of Service Trade in Henan Province, Hubei Province, and Central China (2013 –2018). Sources: Henan Provincial Commerce Department and Department of Commerce of Hubei Province.

(a) Since 2013, the MS value of service trade in Henan Province has shown an overall growth trend, which was 1.56% in 2018 and the growth rate from 2014 to 2017 was the most significant. This shows that the overall attractiveness of Henan’s service trade in the domestic horizontal association is rising. Combined with the previous analysis, it can be inferred that the scale of service trade in Henan Province continues to expand, but the MS value declined in 2018 (compared to 2017). This shows that the absolute growth rate of service trade in Henan Province in 2018 is slower than the overall growth rate of the country.

(b) Compared with the average MS value of the provinces in central China, the MS value of service trade in Henan Province as a whole shows a developmental process that is first lower than the average MS value of the central provinces and then higher than the average. However, judging from the gap, the MS value of service trade in Henan Province is relatively close to the average MS value of the central provinces. This shows that although the competitiveness of service trade in Henan Province is higher than the average of the central provinces, the competitive advantage is not obvious.

(c) The MS value of service trade in Henan Province is lower than that of Hubei Province in central China each year in the study. This shows that the competitiveness of service trade in Henan is weaker than that of Hubei which is also a central province. However, the gap between the MS values of service trade in Henan and Hubei is shrinking. Although the current competitiveness of service trade in Henan.

3.2 Measurement of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index

Balassa proposed the exposed comparative advantage (RCA) index in 1965. The index reflects the comparative competitive advantage of some industry or product in the international trade. The proportion of Henan’s export value of service trade to Henan’s total export value and the quantity of China’s export value of service trade to China’s number of export significance. See Eq. (2) for its calculation. $RCA = \frac{{SX}_{i}}{\sum_{i = 1}^{n} {SX}_{i}} / \frac{{SN}_{i}}{\sum_{i = 1}^{n} {SN}_{i}}$ (2)

In the formula, SX_i represents Henan’s export value of service trade. $\sum_{i = 1}^{n} {SX}_{i}$ represents Henan’s total export value. SN_i represents China’s export value of service trade. $\sum_{i = 1}^{n} {SN}_{i}$ represents China’s total export value. When RCA < 0.8, the competitiveness is weak. When 0.8 < RCA < 1.25, the competitiveness is moderate. When 1.25 < RCA < 2.5, the competitiveness is strong, and when RCA > 2.5, the competitiveness is very strong.

Combined with the export value of service trade and the total export value of trade of Henan Province and China, the data shown in Figure 3 can be obtained: Since 2013, the overall RCA index of service trade in Henan Province has shown an upward trend and reached the highest value in 2015. Thus, it can be seen that the overall revealed comparative advantage of Henan’s service trade in terms of overall development trend is constantly increasing. However, in terms of absolute value, only in 2015, the RCA index of service trade in Henan Province is larger than 0.8, entering the moderate competitive state, and is relatively close to the critical value of 0.8. Therefore, from the perspective of revealed comparative advantage, the competitiveness of Henan’s service trade is constantly strengthening, but the overall competitiveness is still weak and needs to be further improved.

Fig. 3

RCA File of Service Trade in Henan Province (2013 –2018). Source: Henan Statistical Yearbook and China Statistical Yearbook (2013 –2018).

3.3 Measurement of trade competitiveness (TC) index

The Trade Competitiveness (TC) Index reflects the ratio amongst the export/ import difference and the total value of import/export of an product in a country or region. Compared with RCA index, TC index includes import in the evaluation to improve the comprehensiveness. See Eq. (3) for calculation. $TC = \frac{X - M}{X + M}$ (3)

In the formula, X represents the export value of service trade in Henan Province. M represents the import value of service trade in Henan Province. The value of TC is between –1 and 1. The larger the value is, the stronger the trade modest advantage is. When range of TC is less than 0, the trade competition is at a disadvantage state and the closer to -1 it is, the greater the disadvantage will be.

By calculating the import and export data of service trade in Henan Province, the data shown in Figure 4 can be obtained: From the overall change of TC value, we can see a large fluctuation in the main trend of rising, which shows that the competitive advantage of service trade in Henan Province continues to expand as a whole. Judging from the TC value, we can see the difference between different years is large but the overall quality is small (in some years, TC < 0.0). From these data, we can infer that the overall competitive advantage is weak and the service trade in Henan Province is even at a disadvantage in some years. Therefore, in view of road belt, Henan’s competitive advantages of service trade are showing an intensified trend, but the overall competitiveness is still relatively small and has much room for improvement compared with the eastern coastal cities.

Fig. 4

TC Value of Service Trade in Henan Province (2013 –2018). Source: Henan Statistical Yearbook (2013 –2018).

3.4 Measurement of service trade openness (SO)

Further deepening the openness of service trade to the outside world, and strengthening the cooperation with the Belt and Road countries are inevitable for the development of service trade in Henan Province. To this end, this paper introduces the service trade openness (SO) for evaluation and its calculation is shown in Equation (4): $SO = \frac{M + X}{GDP}$ (4)

In the formula, X represents the export value of service trade of Henan Province. M represents the import value of service trade of Henan Province. GDP means the GDP of Henan Province. The SO value is between 0 and 1. The larger the value is, the higher the openness of service trade in Henan Province and the higher the degree of cooperation in service trade with the Belt and Road countries are.

By calculating the import and export data of service trade in Henan Province and the GDP of Henan Province each year, we can see in Fig. 5: From the overall change trend of the openness degree of service trade in Henan Province, SO value has shown an expanding trend since 2013, which shows that the openness of service trade in Henan Province is further expanding. From the changes of SO value at various stages, we can see that it is rising rapidly from 2013 to 2016, rising slowly from 2016 to 2017, and there is a slight callback from 2017 to 2018, which shows that the openness trend of service trade in Henan Province has weakened in recent years. The absolute SO value of Henan Province is small each year. This shows that, in the context of the Belt and Road, the service trade openness in Henan Province continues to increase, but the overall service trade openness is still low and there is a slowdown in development. Therefore, in order to further increase the service trade openness in Henan Province to strengthen international competitiveness, it is necessary to make optimization and improvement to increase its international market share, foreign competitive advantage, and openness to the outside world, and ultimately increase the international competitiveness of service trade.

Fig. 5

SO Value of Service Trade in Henan Province (2013 –2018). Source: Henan Statistical Yearbook (2013 –2018).

4 Fuzzy analytic network process

ANP is a significant decision making methodology providing constant transmission to handle the issues related to business. In this model ANP is utilized inside the plat form as it gives a associative trade off below the complexity of various criteria under certain environment. ANP is a significant decision model that elucidates the reflects as quantitative results and significantly provides outcome within and amongst the elements segment. Feedback during trade analysis is received back from the collaborative set of the manufacturing places in policies of linguistic preferences which are then formed into weights which are important utilizing scale based on trade assessment.

Moreover, a structured process is to process like information of vague and imprecise is introducing a triangular fuzzy membership function. Fuzzy sets are to form resemble decisions based on humans. Further, fuzzy triangular functions converts the linguistic quantitative preferences into quantitative models. A tilde ‘ ’ on certain letter which is utilized to assign a number in fuzzy. The illustration of triangular fuzzy number is given by Å = (v₁₁, v₁₂, v₁₃), where v₁₁, v₁₂ and v₁₃ depicts to lower possible, the most significant and the huge possible weights for preference, the l^th row of a matrix for decision making individually.

The following algebra utilized using fuzzy has been adopted from Chan et al. [27] in case to estimate the number of triangular fuzzy for the proposed model:

$V_{oj}^{1}$ : The numbers representing triangular fuzzy (where j = 1,2, ... , v and i = 1,2, ... , u) Q = Non fuzzy representing number called as weight for priority. For V₁ = (v₁₁, v₁₂, v₁₃) and V₂ = (v₂₁, v₂₂, v₂₃), the ordinate of the point of interesting is estimated as $W (V_{2} \geq V_{1}) = \frac{v_{11} - v_{23}}{(v_{22} - v_{23}) - (v_{12} - v_{11})}$ (5)

In this matrix form an association amongst V₁ and V₂ is mentioned to be utilized the values present in the trade assessment judgment of W (V₁ ≥ V₂) and W (V₂ ≥ V₁) are required for computation.

5 Countermeasures to Enhance the International Competitiveness of Service Trade in Henan Province under the Background of the Belt and Road

5.1 Renovation and upgrade of traditional service trade industry

At present, from the analysis of the service types provided by Henan Province, it can be seen that they mainly focus on tourism, transportation, and processing services. Taking 2018 as an example, they account for more than 70% of service trade. The above three types of service trades are the core of service trade in Henan Province for a long time. However, with the development of the times and the changing needs of domestic and foreign consumers, the development of the above-mentioned traditional service trade industries has not undergone a major renovation and upgrade. As a result, it is difficult to obtain a high degree of market recognition for the supply quality of service products, so that the development of the traditional service trade industry is large but not strong, and ultimately it cannot be further developed and strengthened. Therefore, it is necessary to renovate and upgrade the traditional service trade industry in Henan Province. Due to the differences in the specific requirements for the renovation and upgrade of different service industries, the largest service trade industry in Henan Province, tourism, is taken as an example.

Henan is a province with large tourism resource. In 2018, Henan obtained a tourism revenue of 812.021 billion RMB, while the value created by international tourists was about 13 billion RMB, accounting for 1.53% of the total tourism revenue. It can be seen from these data that Henan Province is a major tourism service province. Its rich tourism resources have been recognized by many tourists. But there are still major deficiencies in attracting international tourists. To upgrade the tourism industry, the traditional service trade industry in Henan Province, in order to enhance the competitiveness of the tourism industry in the foreign market and strengthen the attractiveness to the people of the Belt and Road countries, the following renovating and upgrading measures must be taken:

First, integration and repair of tourist attractions, improvement of tourist environment, and attractiveness enhancement of tourist resources. At present, some tourist attractions in Henan Province still have the serious problems of “old, shabby, and small”, which lessens the attraction. For example, some tourist attractions were built in the 1960 s or 1980 s and were not repaired in a large scale. The old and shabby buildings and out-of-date styles weaken the attraction and recognition of international tourists. In addition, at the beginning of the 21st century, a boom in tourism in Henan Province appeared, and the local government successively built some lesser-known tourist attractions. These tourist attractions have significant deficiencies in attracting international tourists and the government or local investment enterprises are often unable to carry out large-scale renovations. In this context, many small scattered scenic spots cannot be renovated and upgraded are formed. In view of the current situation, it is necessary to integrate and repair these tourist attractions, strengthen the improvement of the tourist environment, and enhance the attractiveness of tourist resources. That is, the provincial tourism bureau should take the initiative to promote the integration of Henan’s tourism resources, and appropriately introduce large external cultural tourism enterprises (such as Wanda Cultural Tourism) and financial institutions to participate in the integrated development of tourism in Henan Province. Thus, it can promote the optimization and integration of tourism resources and strengthen the strength of tourism development enterprises to ensure the ability of repairing scenic spots. Eventually, the utilization value of tourism resources and the level of tourist attractions in Henan Province will be improved to enhance the attractiveness to international tourists.

Second, improvement of infrastructure construction, tourism traffic and reception capacity, and guarantee of the travel and stay of international tourists. The tourism infrastructure directly affects the entry and stay of international tourists. At present, in addition to some well-known tourist attractions which have relatively perfect transportation systems and reception facilities, the tourist attractions located in remote or small and medium-sized cities in Henan Province have obvious deficiencies in traffic accessibility and tourist reception. For example, a red tourist attraction in a remote area attracts some international tourists. However, due to the lack of high-quality hospitality hotels, international tourists cannot travel overnight, so the travel can only be a fancy tour. To improve the international competitiveness of the tourism service industry in Henan Province, it is necessary to improve infrastructure construction, strengthen tourism traffic and reception capacity, and ensure the travel and stay of international tourists. On the one hand, the Provincial Tourism Bureau must act as a guide to actively coordinate all parties to do a good job in infrastructure construction; on the other hand, it must also strengthen the introduction of large enterprises to improve the reception capacity of tourist attractions in the regions.

Third, promotion of tourism products in the Belt and Road countries and increase of popularity and attractiveness of products in the tourism service industry. For enhancing the international competitiveness of Henan tourism service industry, it is necessary to strengthen the international publicity of the tourism products of the province, so as to increase the recognition of tourism service products of Henan Province by the Belt and Road countries. To this end, the Henan Provincial Tourism Bureau can work with major tourism companies in the province to participate in relevant tourism promotion conferences of related countries under the guidance of the National Tourism Administration, as well as to advertise on well-known media in these countries. In this way, the tourism service products of Henan Province will be better introduced to people of these countries, so as to improve the competitiveness of the tourism service products of Henan.

5.2 Further expansion of breadth and depth of service trade openness

Based on the previous analysis, it is form that although the current openness of trading service in Henan Province is constantly improving, it is still relatively low. To this end, under the background of the Belt and Road, it is necessary to further increase the service trade openness in Henan Province in order to strengthen the international competitiveness. To further expand the breadth and the depth of service trade openness, we need to focus on the following tasks:

First, further expansion of the breadth of service trade openness. Further strengthening the breadth of opening to the outside world is an inevitable requirement for the development of service trade and the improvement of international competitiveness in Henan Province under the background of the Belt and Road. To increase the breadth of service trade openness, on the one hand, Henan Province needs to formulate a more comprehensive service trade support policy for opening to the outside world, so as to enhance huge industrial service to actively get into market internationally. On the other hand, employees in the service industry must also actively adjust their development concepts, comply with the development opportunities of B&R, and actively promote the international development of the industry. For example, the peony flowers in Luoyang, Henan Province, enjoys a certain degree of recognition in the B&R countries, especially those countries that have a deep and long historical relation with China, and have a high degree of recognition for peony flowers and the related cultures. Employees of peony-related industries (flower products, textiles and handicrafts related to peony) in Henan Province should seize the development opportunities brought by B&R and actively promote the internationalization of peony-related service products to improve the international competitiveness of their products.

Second, further expansion of the depth of service trade openness. As the degree of global service trade competition continues to deepen, there are more and more provinces competing with Henan Province in the service trade. Against this background, Henan Province has continued to improve its openness to the outside world and its international competitiveness, so it must continue to expand the depth of service trade openness. Specifically, Henan Province’s service trade openness to the outside world should be transformed from simple product output to technology, management and capital output, and it should reasonably introduce foreign high-quality service trade enterprises. In the context of the development of B&R, whether in Southeast Asia or in Central Asia, there is a greater demand for service trade investment. Therefore, Henan Province can encourage big enterprises to strengthen the technology, management and capital output in service trade, so as to participate in the international competition of service trade at a higher level. In addition, Henan Province can also adopt an open attitude to introduce external technology, management and capital, in order to continuously upgrade the province’s service product production and supply capacity. Ultimately, in the process of increasing the opening up of service trade in Henan Province, the international competitiveness of service trade will be enhanced.

5.3 Building of talent team and improvement of employee qualification

Talent development is the key to the development of any cause. The improvement of the international competitiveness of Henan’s service trade is also inseparable from the contributions of a large number of professionals. At present, in the process of the development of service trade in Henan Province, one important reason why the quality is not high is the lack of talents. So, it is necessary to strengthen the building of talent team to improve the employee qualification, and provide the fundamental guarantee for the improvement of the international competitiveness of service trade in Henan Province. To this end, we need to focus on the following points:

First, training of employees in the service industry. Strengthening the training of employees can ensure the employees to update their knowledge reserves to meet the needs of service trade development. To this end, on the one hand, enterprises need to strengthen the professional skills training for employees internally; on the other hand, local governments should provide free or low-cost professional training services for service employees who are proactive and willing to improve themselves. For example, the government can purchase Internet e-commerce training services from vocational schools. If the employees are willing to participate in the training, they only need to pay a small amount of money to participate in the training. As a result, the self-training of employees is promoted, and ultimately the professionalism of the service industry employees in Henan Province is improved.

Second, the scale of local universities in the delivery of talents in the service industry. In recent years, China has vigorously promoted the reform of the development model of colleges and universities, and promoted the transformation of ordinary colleges and universities to the application-oriented direction. At the same time, in the development of local colleges and universities, actively cooperating with the development of local economy and serving the local economy is also one of the founding goals of each university. Therefore, under the background of the Belt and Road, the cultivation of service trade talents in Henan Province can be based on the universities in the region. Therefore, local colleges and universities in Henan Province should strengthen the cultivation of talents’ practical ability, so as to improve the matching degree between the cultivation of talents and the development needs of service trade in the region. As a result, it forms a source of talents for the improvement of the international competitiveness of service trade in Henan Province.

Third, rational formulation of the entry threshold for the service industry. To improve the overall professional skills of employees, and guide and encourage the self-improvement of the labor force, Henan Province should reasonably formulate the entry threshold for each service industry, and screen out all kinds of talents needed for the development of service trade by setting rational threshold conditions. In this way, the employees can grasp basic skills, which provides a guarantee for the comprehensive improvement of the international competitiveness of service trade. However, it must be made clear that the setting of the entry threshold for each service industry should focus on guiding and inspiring talents, and should not be the guidance for various types of qualification examinations. That is, the entry threshold for each service industry cannot be evolved into a qualification threshold, but a double evaluation standard and diversified evaluation method that takes into account the theoretical and practical skills of employees.

5.4 Promotion of service industry brand construction and enhancement of industry development

The improvement of the international competitiveness of Henan’s service trade is not only the expansion of export scale, but also the improvement of export quality. In the context of the development of B&R, to improve the quality of exports, there must be relatively well-known product brands. Improving the quality and added value of exports through brand effect to improve the international competitiveness of service trade ultimately. For example, French perfumes and various bags have strong brand influence, which can greatly improve the export competitiveness of perfume, bag and other service products in France. Brand is a reflection of the product quality and credibility in the service industry and is the basic guarantee for the development of Henan’s service industry in the fierce market competition. Therefore, brand construction must be included in the promotion of the international competitiveness of the service industry. That is, a certain number of well-known service product brands should be built to form a competitiveness based on brand influence.

In order to strengthen the brand construction of Henan’s service industry, it is necessary to: On the one hand, encourage Henan’s big service industry enterprises to actively carry out brand construction and build their well-known brands. Due to the large investment required by brand construction and the accumulation of historical culture, Henan Province can first encourage powerful companies to carry out brand construction to increase brand influence in the B&R countries. When an enterprise is building a brand, it must clarify the connotation of its brand culture and determine the corresponding slogan for the brand. The construction of the Belt and Road has a certain cultural foundation. Therefore, service companies in Henan Province should make full use of the cultural recognition advantages when carrying out brand construction. Enterprises must determine the corresponding slogan for the brand on the basis of the brand culture connotation. On the other hand, increase the investment in brand construction. The brand construction of service industry is a long way, so it needs continuous and stable investment, especially in the context of the increasingly fierce competition in the international branding of service trade. Therefore, Henan’s service industry companies must also focus on strengthening investment in brand construction. Only by ensuring sustained and stable investment, can the expansion of brand awareness be guaranteed.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

This article is a phased research achievement of Henan Province Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project, Project Number: 2020BJJ058.

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