Visitors interact with a home service robot during the World Smart Industry Expo 2025 in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Sept. 6, 2025. The World Smart Industry Expo 2025 kicked off on Friday in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, showcasing advanced achievements including AI rehabilitation systems, portable wearable devices, elderly care robots, and senior-friendly equipment. Photo: Xinhua

China's foreign investment authorities have vowed to continue expanding market access and widening opening-up, with a stronger focus on services sector cooperation with overseas investors in the new year.

The focus of the new round of opening-up reflects both immediate domestic economic structural needs and long-term strategic considerations, Chinese experts said, adding that it also reiterates the commitment of the world's second-largest services trading economy to fair treatment and stable, predictable trade and operating conditions for foreign businesses.

Wang Ya, an official heading the foreign investment management department under the Ministry of Commerce, said on Monday during a press conference that the country will be steadfast in pursuing high-level opening-up and work to build new advantages in attracting foreign investment. 

China will deepen reforms to its foreign investment promotion framework, further enhance the "Invest in China" brand, and fully advance the upgrading strategy for pilot free trade zones, laying a solid foundation to achieve a strong start to the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), said Wang.

Wang said that the ministry will expand market access and the scope of opening-up with a focus on the services sector, while steadily advancing autonomous opening-up in areas such as telecommunications, healthcare and education.
 
Efforts will also be made to accelerate the roll-out of some pilot programs, support foreign-invested services companies in extending their value chains and achieving more specialized, integrated development, and promote capacity expansion and quality upgrading in the services industry. In those sectors already opened, China will ensure that foreign investors are not only granted market access but are also able to operate accordingly, Wang said.

Preferential policies for foreign investment were also highlighted. The official said that the ministry will provide equal support for foreign-funded enterprises to participate in efforts to boost consumption, as well as in government procurement and bidding activities, helping them establish a long-term presence and pursue sustained growth in China.

In addition, the ministry said that it will continue to improve the supportive framework for foreign investment services, closely addressing the concerns of foreign-funded enterprises and optimizing related services for them.
high-standard international economic and trade rules and carry out institutional opening-up trials across wider areas, the official said.

Rising household incomes and consumption upgrading have steadily increased the share of services in overall consumer spending, making the development of high-quality services an effective way to expand domestic demand and improve the supply structure, Hu Qimu, deputy secretary-general of Forum 50 for Digital-Real Economies Integration, told the Global Times, adding that this trend also creates broader opportunities and greater room for growth for foreign investors.

Technology- and knowledge-intensive segments—including software services, industrial software and producer services - have become integral parts of the sector, Hu told the Global Times on Monday. Expanding market access and opening-up in these areas will help attract high-quality capital, advanced technologies and management expertise at a time of global supply-chain realignment and rising technological fragmentation, while better leveraging China's advantages as a vast, integrated market, said Hu.

As a mutually beneficial approach, the nation is not only advancing efforts to attract foreign investment, but local authorities are also actively rolling out measures to promote services exports and support services providers in expanding overseas, Hu said. 

Beijing, the capital city, this year vowed to improve the quality and efficiency of foreign trade, support exports of products in competitive sectors such as automobiles and biomedicine, foster the innovative development of digital and green trade, and expand services exports, China News reported on Sunday.

The city highlighted expanding international routes at its aviation hubs and strengthening the backbone network for modern logistics. It will better leverage open platforms such as the China International Fair for Trade in Services, the Zhongguancun Forum and the Annual Conference of Financial Street Forum to attract more high-quality foreign-invested projects. The city will also improve all-round cooperation mechanisms with the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, and promote exchanges and cooperation with Taiwan island, per China News.

Shanghai issued a notice on December 29, 2025, saying that it will make better use of pilot opening-up policies in areas such as telecommunications and digital industries, healthcare, and commerce, culture and tourism to attract foreign investment in sectors including value-added telecommunications, biotechnology and wholly foreign-owned hospitals, according to the city's official government website.

The notice also stressed plans to expand imports of high-quality services, host international film exchanges, and deepen cooperation with leading global universities to advance high-level joint education programs.

Hu said that China has distinct advantages in developing advanced services, including the world's most complete industrial system that provides broad application scenarios for producer services, a vast market that offers ample space for long-term growth, and massive data resources - especially industrial and consumer data - that have become critical production factors in the digital economy. 

For multinational companies, China is not only a key market but is increasingly emerging as an important base for research and innovation, further strengthening the appeal of its services sector to foreign investment, Hu said. 

The nation's services sector maintained steady and improving growth in 2025, with preliminary estimates indicating that value added in the services sector in the country reached 80.89 trillion yuan ($11.61 trillion) in 2025, up 5.4 percent year-on-year, official data showed. The sector contributed 61.4 percent to overall economic growth, an increase of 3.7 percentage points from the previous year.