"I hope exhibitors and guests from home and abroad can make use of the fair, making it a platform to strengthen communications and cooperation to boost services and trade in services with mutual benefits," said Cheng Hong, deputy mayor of Beijing.

The fair has also won permanent support from the world's three leading organizations: the World Trade Organization, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Cheng said.

Country eyes more liberalized tertiary industry

China's April services growth quickens slightly

Stephen Phillips, the chief officer of the China-Britain Business Council, said that the education sector has huge potential for boosting trade in services between the two countries, as it will help enhance enterprises' competitiveness.

As China drives economic growth more toward domestic consumption and away from exports and investment, services as a sector is becoming increasingly important to the Chinese economy, said Mukhisa Kituyi, secretary general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

"In the wake of the global crisis of the past six years China has looked to expand domestic consumer markets to reduce vulnerability to financial activities. The expanding international competitiveness of services in the country ... will continue to grow entrepreneurship, increasing the higher value compenents of global value chains," Kituyi said.

He added that one of the key areas of restructuring the Chinese economy is "according concrete significance to services sectors as you move beyond the traditional emphasis on exported growth and start to emphasize new forms of international trade in global value chains.

"The potential importance of domestic consumers as a driver for sustaining high growth rates will improve and refine attention to the services industry," Kituyi said.