China will introduce multiple practical measures to further promote service consumption, which plays an important role in optimizing the country's consumption structure, said the Ministry of Commerce at a press conference on Friday in Beijing.
China's State Council has issued the "Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Service Consumption" -- the first such document in the service sector. It proposes 20 key areas for boosting consumption vitality, including catering and accommodation, elderly care and childcare, entertainment, tourism and more.
"We will focus more on improving people's well-being and stimulating consumption in economic policy-making and take service consumption as a significant booster for expanding and upgrading consumption, propping up consumption in areas such as cultural tourism, elderly care, childcare, home-making, and so on," said Tang Wenhong, assistant minister of commerce.
Authorities say stronger fiscal and financial support will also be implemented to promote the construction of infrastructure in the service sector.
"Meanwhile, we will comprehensively utilize central budget investment, local government special bonds, targeted relending for public-interest elderly care and other funding tools to support the facilities construction of elderly care and childcare service system and the upgrade of facilities and equipment used in sports and cultural events," said Chang Tiewei, vice director of the Department of Employment, Income Distribution and Consumption under the National Development and Reform Commission.
Meanwhile, Chinese policymakers also called for developing new types of consumption, boosting digital, green, and health-related consumption.
Also, on the anvil are creating new avenues for domestic consumption growth, such as smart home products and entertainment.
For its next step, the Ministry of Commerce said it will further promote service consumption by expanding the supply lines of the service sector and increasing the vitality of market entities.
China will also summon its strength to guide and encourage the digitalization and intelligentization of consumption scenarios, promote the innovative integration of various service areas such as commerce, transportation, culture, tourism, and sports, promote the deep integration of advanced manufacturing and modern services and the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in rural areas, and cultivate new growth points for service consumption.
In the meantime, the country will further expand the opening up of the service industry, enhance service supply capabilities and service levels, and expand the scale of service consumption.
"We will select areas with large market demand and insufficient effective supply, and expand opening up in steps and by categories and regions, optimize supply through opening up, and create demand through supply, so as to promote the high-quality development of service consumption," said Tang.
China to further promote service consumption
