China announces greater efforts to boost consumption of services

BEIJING, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) — A Commerce Ministry official said on Friday that China will promote compliance with high standards of international economic and trade rules and expand the scope of opening-up to boost consumption of services.

To improve the supply of services, Tang Wenhong, deputy commerce minister, told a news conference that the country will expand the list of industries encouraged to attract foreign investment to include more sectors related to service consumption, and shorten the negative list that hinders access by foreign investors.

Tang said the country will promote wider opening up of sectors such as telecommunications, the internet, education, culture and medical services. He also promised to apply and improve the negative list for cross-border trade in services.

Chang Tiewei, an official at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told a news conference that the country plans to treat expanding consumption of services as an important lever to stimulate consumer spending and better leverage the role of central government investment funds in promoting the sector.

According to NDRC data, in the first half of this year, consumption of services accounted for 45.6 percent of the country’s per capita consumer spending, up from 44.5 percent in the previous year.

According to Chang, rising national income and the ongoing process of urbanization will result in greater demand for the consumption of services, while technological innovation will provide consumers with access to new services, which will be a driving factor in the growth of services consumption.