China steps up efforts to improve capacity, quality of service sector

 China will deepen reform to remove barriers, harness technology to cultivate new growth drivers, roll out practical measures to boost opening up, and commit fiscal resources to support capacity expansion and quality improvement in the service sector, said Shen Zhulin, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission on Tuesday.

Speaking at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office, Shen emphasized that efforts will be exerted to support higher-end manufacturing and uplift people's lives.

China has issued guidelines aimed at expanding capacity and upgrading the quality of the service sector, which state that the total scale of the service sector is expected to reach 100 trillion yuan (about 14.58 trillion U.S. dollars) by 2030.

This will require not only addressing existing supply-demand gaps by steadily expanding service supply, cultivating new growth drivers and new spaces for services trade, but also upgrading quality standards, strengthening brand competitiveness, and moving faster up the industrial and value chains.

The guidelines call for full-chain reinforcement of weak links in producer services. Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Ke Jixin said a dedicated "AI plus software" action will be launched to foster new business models, while open-source ecosystems will be further strengthened and basic and industrial software will benefit from intelligent upgrades.

For consumer services, Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism Gao Zheng said three areas will be prioritized: enriching cultural and tourism product supply, creating new consumption scenarios, and strengthening market regulation to meet the public's high-quality demand.

China's services trade remains among the world's largest by value but still posts a deficit. The guidelines call for nurturing more "China Services" brands.

Zhang Li, an official with the Ministry of Commerce, noted the government will encourage service exports and promote international openness and cooperation, including fostering internationally competitive service export companies and clusters, aligning with high-standard international economic and trade rules, relaxing market access in selected service sectors in an orderly manner, and facilitating cross-border flows of capital, talent, and data closely related to services trade.

On technology commercialization, where professional service support remains insufficient, Ke added that authorities will focus on players, talent, mechanisms, and ecosystem to build a high-quality, efficient technology service system during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030). ■