Shanghai Pudong New Area unveils three-year action plan to boost trade in services

Shanghai's Pudong New Area issued on Friday a three-year action plan for promoting high-quality development of trade in services, setting ambitious goals for growth in the volume of trade in services and the amount of digital trade.

The plan, covering the period from 2026 to 2028, sets clear targets that by 2028 the total volume of trade in services in Pudong will exceed 140 billion U.S. dollars, with digital trade surpassing 70 billion U.S. dollars.

Last year, the Pudong New Area's total import and export volume of trade in services reached 121.02 billion U.S. dollars, up 4.4 percent year on year, accounting for more than half of Shanghai's total.

In recent years, leveraging its strengths in technological innovation and artificial intelligence (AI), the Pudong New Area has kept promoting integrated development of AI and trade in services, including healthcare services, to expand new frontiers for the sector.

"We aim to explore overseas markets for high-end medical devices featuring embodied AI rehabilitation robots. We are also trying to extend our core capabilities in rehabilitation into new areas such as elderly care services," said Shi Hui, vice president of an intelligent technology company.

In 2025, Pudong was home to more than 1,000 AI enterprises, with the industry's total output reaching 198.2 billion yuan (29 billion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 11 percent. The area also had over 100 key enterprises specializing in embodied AI, forming a full-industry-chain layout.

In addition, intelligent technologies have also been applied in maritime services to streamline logistics and improve efficiency.

"In the area of trade in services, we have adopted intelligent technologies to accelerate the flow of goods and facilitate smoother logistics. We are also promoting 'maritime data plus' initiatives, using our maritime supervision data to empower financial institutions and insurance companies. By building a large evaluation model, we aim to support faster financing and insurance services for the shipping industry, ultimately contributing to healthy development of the entire sector," said Xie Xin, director of the hazardous materials management and pollution prevention center of the Maritime Affairs Bureau of the Pudong New Area.

Shanghai Pudong New Area unveils three-year action plan to boost trade in services

Israel's influence on the Trump administration outsizes the already significant sway it held over previous presidencies, contributing to miscalculations that ultimately led to strikes on Iran and putting the temporary ceasefire at risk, said a U.S. expert.

After about 40 days of deadly clashes, the United States and Iran reached a two-week ceasefire on Wednesday, with Israel supporting the truce. However, the truce remains deeply fragile, especially as Israel continues to attack Lebanon, which Iran has called a violation of the ceasefire and threatened a strong response if it continues.

However, the power of the Israel lobby in the United States, especially over the Trump Administration, may weaken its ability to rein in Israeli military action, said Anton Fedyashin, an associate professor at American University.

"The Trump administration has no one but itself to blame. Although it is acting in a very important context, which is the general, enormous influence of the Israeli government over all American administrations, except that under Trump, this influence of course is greater than ever before. Israel has a very powerful lobby in the United States. This is absolutely no secret; not only articles, but very good books have been written about this," he said in an interview with China Global Television Network.

Fedyashin said this influence, combined with poor intelligence, contributed to what he described as a misjudgment that Iran's government would easily fall.

"The problem is that while previous presidents have managed to somehow resist that lobby, Donald Trump seems to have completely fallen for Benjamin Netanyahu's case to convince him that the attack on Iran will be lightning fast, will achieve results very quickly. And this becomes a very important question about the quality of Mossad information, because along with Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House meeting, which happened on February 11, at least according to New York Times, was the head of the Israeli Mossad, and both Netanyahu and the head of Mossad were convincing Trump that Iran's government is on its last legs, that all it needs is a slight push, and that was a catastrophic misjudgment," he said.

US influence over Israel limited as attacks on Lebanon threaten to shatter ceasefire: expert