China Takes Steps to Promote High-Quality Service Consumption Development

BEIJING — China will work to further develop consumer services to support high-quality economic development and meet people’s demand for personalized, diversified and high-quality services, according to guidelines released Saturday.

The guidelines issued by the State Council identified 20 key tasks, including the use of consumption potential in sectors such as hotels, home services, care for the elderly, childcare, entertainment, tourism, sports, education and training.

It also committed to supporting new forms of consumption, such as digital, green and health services, creating new consumption scenarios, facilitating market access, strengthening regulation and providing greater policy support for the consumption of services.

According to the document, China will continue to open up sectors such as telecommunications, education, elderly care and medical care, and will also ensure the implementation of opening measures in areas such as technology services and tourism.

The country also aims to optimize its entry policy and consumption environment, accelerate the resumption of flights, provide diversified payment services and explore the possibility of granting visa-free travel to more countries, the statement said.

China will boost domestic demand by focusing on boosting consumption, with service consumption being the main driver of the expansion and upgrading of consumption, according to a key meeting to set priorities for the second half of 2024 on Tuesday.

In the first half of this year, China’s retail sales of services rose 7.5 percent year-on-year, according to official data, which is 4.3 percentage points more than sales of goods.