The CEPA Agreement on Trade in Services was officially implemented on 1 June 2016, marking the basic liberalization of trade in services between the Mainland, Hong Kong and Macao. The balanced panel data of 21 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong Province from 2012 to 2019 were selected to evaluate the impact and mechanism of CEPA service trade agreement on the industrial structure upgrading of underdeveloped areas in Guangdong Province by using the double difference method. The results show that: (1) the implementation of the CEPA agreement on trade in services has promoted the upgrading of the industrial structure of underdeveloped areas in Guangdong Province, and this result is still true after the robustness test; (2) The mechanism of action shows that the CEPA agreement on trade in services can promote the upgrading of industrial structure by improving the level of regional innovation.

Liu Shilin. The impact of CEPA trade in services agreement on the upgrading of industrial structure in underdeveloped areas of Guangdong Province. Academic Journal of Business & Management (2023) Vol. 5, Issue 6: 105-113. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJBM.2023.050616.

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