China News Service, Beijing, April 8 (Reporter Liu Wenwen) China's service industry, which has the potential to grow into billions of dollars, is ushering in high-standard deployment.
The National Service Industry Conference was held in Beijing from April 7th to 8th, at which important instructions from Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, State President, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, were conveyed.
The service industry is the largest industry in China's national economy. Since its share exceeded 50% for the first time in 2015, the service industry has accounted for "half of" China's economy for 11 consecutive years. The service industry's contribution to economic growth has also increased from 55.1% in 2020 to 61.4% in 2025. The National Development and Reform Commission predicts that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the scale of China's service industry will exceed 100 trillion yuan.
Hong Qunlian, a researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics and Technical Economics of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in an interview with a reporter from China News Service that as the main driving force for economic growth, the main channel for attracting employment, the main engine for expanding domestic demand, the main position for innovation and upgrading, and the main track for opening up to the outside world, promoting the high-quality and efficient development of the service industry is related to the overall modernization construction.
China's service industry, which is steadily expanding in scale, is striving to achieve a leap in quality and efficiency.
Chen Jianwei, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics, pointed out that at this stage, China still has structural contradictions such as insufficient specialization in the producer service industry and uneven quality in the consumer service industry. There is still a gap between the supply of high-end services and the demand for new productivity.
Experts interviewed all believe that Xi Jinping’s important instructions of “highlighting demand traction, reform and reform, technology empowerment, and open cooperation” have clarified the path for high-quality development of the service industry.
Hong Qunlian said that "demand traction" focuses on the needs of industrial transformation and upgrading and residents' consumption upgrades, anchoring the direction of development; "reform and attack" aims to remove institutional obstacles and stimulate the vitality of the service industry market; "technological empowerment" emphasizes relying on digital intelligence technology to increase the technological content of the service industry; "open cooperation" requires docking with international high-standard economic and trade rules, and orderly expanding the independent opening of the service industry.
"The four parties work together to enhance China's bargaining power and competitive advantage in the global industrial chain by building a 'China Service' brand." Chen Jianwei said.
Deployments written into the outline of the "15th Five-Year Plan" such as "implementing actions to expand capacity and improve quality of the service industry", "promoting the extension of producer services to specialization and the high end of the value chain" and "promoting the high-quality, diversified and convenient development of lifestyle services" were also reiterated this time.
Experts pointed out that the above-mentioned measures focus on two core areas: on the one hand, closely following the needs of industrial transformation and upgrading, focusing on opening up weak links in the producer service industry and cultivating professional service enterprises; on the other hand, focusing on people's livelihood needs, following the trend of residents' consumption upgrade, expanding the supply of high-quality services such as housekeeping, elderly care, childcare, cultural tourism, and commerce, cultivating new growth points in service consumption, and taking into account the quality of development and the warmth of people's livelihood.
To deeply tap the market potential of RMB 100 billion and cultivate more "Chinese service" brands, Chen Jianwei believes that we can continue to make efforts from two dimensions.
First, accelerate the deep integration of advanced manufacturing and modern service industries, and embed producer services into the global mid-to-high-end industrial chain by strengthening R&D, design and technology services; second, promote the standardization and internationalization of the service industry, and transform China's mature experience in smart logistics, digital delivery and other fields into universal standards for global service trade. (over)
