Services sector Photo: VCG

China's services sector is moving further into the center of the country's high-quality development agenda at the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, as local governments roll out detailed road maps aimed at expanding capacity, improving quality and strengthening the sector's role in supporting industrial upgrading, domestic demand and employment, analysts said.

The momentum has been reflected in recent plans issued or released for public comment by Shanghai, Guizhou, Guangdong, Chongqing and other provincial-level regions, whose priorities vary according to their industrial foundations and regional roles.

The Shanghai Municipal Government on Monday announced the city's services sector development plan for the 15th Five-Year Plan period, saying that by 2030, the sector's added value should reach about 6 trillion yuan ($830 billion), with steady improvements in digitalization, standardization, integration and internationalization.

Under the plan, Shanghai aims to build a high-quality and efficient services system led by stronger urban core functions, with high-end producer services as the mainstay and high-quality consumer services as the support. The plan also said that Shanghai will make the sector a stronger "resilient foundation" for economic growth and a more influential "dynamic hub" for the global allocation of services resources.

The local rollout follows a broader national policy push. China's 15th Five-Year Plan outline calls for comprehensively enhancing the quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the services sector, while better leveraging its role in supporting industrial upgrading, meeting people's needs and driving employment expansion. 

A State Council opinion issued in April set a target for the sector's total scale to reach the level of 100 trillion yuan by 2030. It called for producer services to move toward specialization and the high end of the value chain, while promoting consumer services in a high-quality, diversified and convenient direction.

Cong Yi, a professor at the Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, said that Shanghai's services sector plan, along with similar moves by other localities, shows that high-quality development of the sector has become an important part of implementing the country's broader strategic agenda, as services hold vast potential in supporting industrial upgrading, expanding domestic demand and improving people's quality of life.

"The sector's development today is no longer only about quantitative growth in the traditional sense. It now puts greater emphasis on digitalization, integration and green development, which point to the upgrading direction of modern services," Cong told the Global Times on Monday.

Local governments have increasingly recognized the service sector's vast potential, Zhou Mi, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times. With solid industrial foundations already in place in many regions, further momentum in services will help optimize local economic and industrial structures, Zhou said. 

Other regions are advancing services sector policies based on their own comparative advantages. South China's Guangdong Province on May 20 announced a three-year action plan for the high-quality development of trade in services from 2026 to 2028, pledging to innovate in services trade and digital trade, raise the development level of high-end services trade and build itself into a national and global hub for trade in services.


The plan sets a target for Guangdong's total services trade to exceed $310 billion by 2028, with an average annual growth rate of more than 10 percent. It highlights areas including inbound tourism, international logistics, telecommunications, computer and information services, as well as the high-end upgrading of software outsourcing services.

Southwest China's Guizhou Province has also issued an action plan to expand capacity and improve the quality of its services sector, targeting added value of 1.45 trillion yuan by the end of 2027 and 1.7 trillion yuan by the end of 2030, with average annual growth of about 5 percent during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

The plan focuses on areas including technology services, modern logistics, software and information services, finance, healthcare, eldercare, culture, tourism and sports, while calling for digital transformation, stronger branding, deeper industrial integration and steady opening-up.

Cong said that the differing priorities in local plans reflect the policy of "developing in light of local conditions" alongside nationwide coordinated progress. 

"Regions build on their comparative advantages and steer clear of homogeneous competition, which will help foster a pattern featuring division of labor, coordination and complementary strengths."

The rollout of local plans also underscores the growing importance of the sector in China's economy. In 2025, China's services sector added value topped 80 trillion yuan for the first time. In the first quarter of 2026, the sector accounted for 61.7 percent of GDP and 63.2 percent of growth, official data showed.

According to Zhou, services sector expansion and upgrading will drive economic growth on two fronts. High-end producer services will boost China's manufacturing upgrade, and enhanced consumer services will satisfy people's needs for a better life and unlock domestic market potential, he said.

Authorities will leverage technology to foster new growth drivers, adopt more pragmatic measures to advance opening-up, and offer tangible incentives to support the expansion and quality improvement of the services sector, said Shen Zhulin, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a press conference in late April.