By Global Times
China will expand market access and open up more areas, particularly in the services sector, according to a Government Work Report submitted on Thursday to the country's top legislature for deliberation.
Specifically, the country will further expand opening-up trials for value-added telecom services, biotechnology, wholly foreign-owned hospitals, and other fields, take well-ordered steps to expand opening-up in the digital sector, and shorten the negative list for cross-border trade in services, the report said.
Brief as it is, the passage is rich in information. The emphasis on expanding market access in the services sector sends a strong signal that China is making a significant leap, from opening up its manufacturing sector to pursuing a higher level of institutional opening-up in services.
For a long time, China's opening-up achievements have been centered primarily on manufacturing. From establishing special economic zones to joining the World Trade Organization, and ultimately removing all market access restrictions for foreign investors in the manufacturing sector, these sustained efforts have yielded a high degree of openness, establishing China as a global manufacturing powerhouse.
And now, opening-up in the services sector is picking up pace. Although it now accounts for 57.7 percent of China's GDP and plays an increasingly vital role, there remains huge potential for development. Expanding market access to attract more sophisticated international services providers would not only meet rising domestic consumption demand but also help drive improvements in quality and efficiency in the domestic industry.
The three specific sectors highlighted in the Government Work Report - value-added telecom services, biotechnology, and wholly foreign-owned hospitals - perfectly illustrate this logic. All are technology-intensive, knowledge-intensive, and subject to stringent regulation. When foreign capital enters these sectors, it brings not just investment but internationally recognized technical standards, management practices, and services models that will catalyze comprehensive upgrading across related industries.
From the perspective of domestic industry development, expanding opening-up in the services sector is a requirement for promoting high-quality development. Opening up services, particularly producer services such as research and development, design, and other management functions, can enhance efficiency and help manufacturing move up the global value chain.
Meanwhile, opening up consumer services such as healthcare, eldercare, and education directly addresses people's diverse needs for a better life. The competitive pressure generated by opening-up will accelerate technological innovation and management transformation among domestic enterprises, ultimately improving total factor productivity.
The commitment to shortening "the negative list for cross-border trade in services" provides the essential institutional framework for achieving these goals. The negative list embodies international high-standard trade and investment rules, granting market entities maximum freedom and certainty.
Continuously shortening this list means progressively reducing restrictions on foreign investment while making rules more transparent and streamlined. For both Chinese and foreign enterprises, a stable, predictable, and transparent business environment holds great appeal these days amid rising unilateralism and protectionism overseas.
Amid the current international situation, the significance of these opening-up measures becomes even clearer. Amid a weak global economic recovery and rising protectionism, China remains committed to its fundamental state policy of opening-up, taking concrete actions to safeguard the stability of global industrial and supply chains. This policy not only fuels its own development but also provides valuable support for building an open world economy.
The opening-up measures outlined in the Government Work Report send a clear message to the world: China's economic progress is built on openness, continuous self-improvement, and an enterprising embrace of the global community, moving forward without resorting to protectionism. From opening-up in the manufacturing sector to services opening-up, China is pursuing a higher level of institutional openness. By integrating more deeply into the global economy, it is achieving its own high-quality development while injecting sustained momentum into global economic growth.
InsightSpeak
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Hong Kong’s poverty line has taken a new twist. There is no longer an assessment of those living below the poverty line, but rather a targeted poverty alleviation strategy.
Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Chris Sun Yuk-Han explained that the poverty line was a very statistical concept that was purely based on income but failed to capture the full scope of need within the community.
In the past, the poverty line was based on 50 per cent of median household income. Currently, that is HK$30,000 for a four-person household or about $10,300 for a single-person household.
Hong Kong’s poverty rate affects more than 1.4 million residents, with significant variations across districts and age groups. Elderly citizens face the highest poverty risk at nearly 45 per cent, while districts like Sham Shui Po and Kwun Tong show concentrated disadvantages.
Government intervention, such as Old Age Living Allowance, reduces the poverty rate from 23.6 per cent to 14.9 per cent after policy measures, highlighting both the scale of need and the impact of social programs on vulnerable populations.
Regionally, Singapore reports a poverty rate around 10 per cent using comparable methodology, Japan’s relative poverty rate reaches 15.7 per cent, and South Korea shows 16.7 per cent. Taiwan registers about 11 per cent.
After dropping the use of the poverty line, the government adopted a new 21-indicator framework on a 227-page Targeted Poverty Alleviation Strategy Report, which identifies the most vulnerable groups and for the first time assess the “social transfer value covering income, employment, assets, reliance on cash welfare, housing, education or training access, and physical health or social connectivity, to identify the city’s neediest groups.
The combined size of three groups identified by the report totalled 1.13 million people across 667,000 households, with the data measured over different years and some individuals belonging to more than one group.
The recognition of health carers in the report is particularly significant, as they often provide essential support without formal compensation. Their inclusion in the expanded assessment framework indicates a growing awareness of their crucial role in society and the potential need for targeted assistance to alleviate their burdens.
Chief Secretary for Administration, Eric Chan Kwok-ki, as chairman of the Commission on Poverty (CoP) has been quoted as saying that by adopting several innovative elements in the report, the CoP seeks to present how the Government's allocation of resources improves the living standards of beneficiary households, so that the public could better perceive the direct relevance between the policies and their own interests. For example, he said, this is the first time that the internationally recognized concept of "social transfer values" was adopted to quantify the social resources transferred to households that benefit from regular housing, health, education, and welfare measures. Such an analysis would reflect in a more comprehensive manner the Government's efforts and effectiveness in alleviating poverty.
A “Pilot Programme on Community Living Room” provides additional living spaces and support services for “sub divided unit” (SDU) households.
The CoP identified three target groups SDU households, single-parent households and elders-only households.
The strategy also encompasses a number of programmes for targeted groups. A “Strive and Rise Programme” focuses on supporting secondary students from underprivileged families particularly those residing in sub divided units (SDUs) to lift them out of intergenerational poverty. The “Teen for a Brighter Future” programme, for example, provides for a school-based after school care service scheme enabling primary students, especially from single parent households to stay at school after school hours to receive supervised care and academic support in familiar and safe environment. This alleviates parenting pressures and facilitates parents to seek employment. For example, a child whose education from kindergarten to university would be subsidized to $2.5 million. It is the first time the government has adopted the international concept of “social transfer values” and measures how much income a family gained by not having to pay full price for public services.
Another reason why the CoP dropped the poverty line indicator was that Hong Kong was now entering a “very ageing society” in which most elderly people no longer earned an income.
Recognizing elders-only households often lack support and attention, CoP says it supports Government’s engagement of Care Teams to visit elderly singletons, doubletons, and three-person-and-above elderly households and refer cases in need to social welfare service units.
However, the success of this new strategy depends on three main elements: accurate implementation—making sure resources reach the intended groups; ongoing monitoring—developing an alternative, comprehensive assessment mechanism to track overall poverty trends; and sustained commitment—maintaining long-term collaboration among government, businesses, and citizens. If implemented effectively, this strategy could create a more holistic and compassionate poverty alleviation system for Hong Kong, shifting from "distributing money to the poor" to "empowering people to escape poverty", thereby maximising the social benefits of limited resources.
