By Ouyang Jie
The State Council of China recently allowed a further six cities to launch comprehensive pilot
programs for opening up the service sector, including Shenyang, Nanjing, and Hangzhou, bringing
the total number to 11.
Following the pilot program’s initial implementation in Beijing in 2015, it was another significant
step by China to further open the service sector.
The service sector is a vital part of China’s high-level opening up. In recent years, the sector has
witnessed accelerated development. According to preliminary statistics, the added value of the
tertiary industry accounted for 52.8 percent of China’s GDP and contributed 41.8 percent to the
country’s economic growth in 2022.
The development of internet information and digital technology have accelerated the division of
labor in the global service sector, leading to prosperity in service trade and inspiring the passion of
cross-border capital for the service sector.
China has actively joined open cooperation in the global service sector. Its service trade has
maintained stable growth, and its tertiary industry has become a major attraction for foreign
investors.
China has taken firm and steady steps to open up its service sector.
Over the recent years, the pilot program of opening the service sector has made constant
exploration and innovations, and relevant experiences are promoted nationwide.
Recently, China’s Ministry of Commerce once again promoted a batch of exemplary cases of
innovation in intellectual property services, digitalization of public services, healthcare industrial
chain, and financing and rental businesses, providing systematic and comprehensive solutions for
the opening up of relevant industries.
Innovation is being applied in wider areas and achieving more and more fruitful results. More
replicable experiences are implemented across the country, leading the innovative development of
the service sector and releasing the productivity of the modern tertiary industry.
China enjoys enormous space for opening up its service sector.
The country is currently working to build a high-quality and efficient new system for the service
sector and is promoting the in-depth integration of modern services into advanced manufacturing
and modern agriculture.
This new system not only represents the emergence of new business forms in the service sector
but also marks that new technologies and business forms will start upgrading other industries.
China promotes in-depth reforms with high-level opening up and introduces quality supply of
services that are more professional, high-end, and diversified by opening the service sector, so as
to boost Chinese market entities’ internal impetus and innovation vitality, nurture new business
forms in the service sector, promote the cross-border flow of technology, digital factors, and
capital, strive for deep participation of domestic industries in the division of labor in the global
value chain, and achieve the upgrading and optimization of the industrial structure.
Today, more and more overseas healthcare, financial, and elderly care services are entering the
Chinese market as Chinese services are exported to foreign destinations. China is willing to share
its economic development outcomes with the rest of the world.
For instance, as the world’s second largest digital economy, China actively joins international
cooperation on the digital economy and aligns itself with high-standard international digital rules.
The opening and integration in the sector of digital economy can bring better development to
China’s digital industry, promote in-depth integration between digital economy and real economy,
and expand the space for industrial cooperation, thus providing new opportunities to the world
with China’s development.
In the future, China will further enhance its efforts to open up the service sector, expand opening
up based on institutions, rules, regulations, management, and standards, and nurture an
environment that’s more open, more transparent and more inclusive.
The opening service sector will not only create a better life for the Chinese people but also share
Chinese opportunities with the rest of the world, making contributions to building a new
development paradigm and promoting high-quality development.
Photo taken on Jan. 8, 2023 shows a night view in Lujiazui, a financial district in Shanghai. (Photo
