Chinese President Xi Jinping called for breaking new ground in the high-quality development of China's service sector at a national conference held in Beijing from Tuesday to Wednesday. He underscored demand-driven development, reform breakthroughs, technology empowerment, and opening up. Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang addressed the meeting.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, issued instructions at the national conference on the service sector held in Beijing from Tuesday to Wednesday.
He noted that since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China's service sector has steadily expanded in scale and continuously improved in quality and efficiency, playing an important role in supporting industrial upgrading, meeting people's livelihood needs, and driving job growth.
Xi called for focusing on demand-driven development, reform breakthroughs, technology empowerment, and opening up and cooperation to carry out capacity-expanding and quality-upgrading initiatives. He urged advancing producer services toward greater specialization and higher end of the value chain, fostering high-quality, diverse, and accessible consumer services, and building more "China Services" brands.
Premier Li Qiang stressed deepening understanding of the service sector from strategic and overall perspectives to promote its high-quality and efficient development. He highlighted adapting to demographic shifts, consumption upgrading, and industrial transformation to foster new growth drivers, advancing digital, intelligent, standardized, integrated, and internationalized development, improving inclusive basic services, expanding upgraded services, and supporting technology and advanced manufacturing, while expanding opening up with targeted policies.
Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, in concluding remarks, urged solid progress on key tasks, emphasizing innovation, cost reduction, efficiency enhancement, catering to demands, and boosting market vitality. He called for correct performance views and effective implementation of CPC Central Committee and State Council decisions.
China's service sector added value surpassed 80 trillion yuan (about 11.65 trillion U.S. dollars) last year, accounting for 57.7 percent of GDP, contributing 61.4 percent to economic growth—up 3.7 percentage points from 2024—and providing around half of total employment, according to official data. The National Development and Reform Commission expects the sector to exceed 100 trillion yuan during 2026-2030.
