Productive services, serving as a crucial pillar for improving the quality and efficiency of the real economy, are increasingly becoming a core indicator for measuring the modernization level of a regional economy.
Beijing, as the first city in the country to introduce a provincial-level policy document specifically for productive services, has led the nation in the proportion of its service sector for two decades.
What is the logic behind this achievement, and what lessons does it hold for major industrial provinces like Shandong?
Xu Yizhi, Secretary of the Party Committee, President, and Researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social and Economic Development, recently provided an in-depth analysis of Beijing's development "code" for productive services and offered profound insights into regional coordination and industrial upgrading.
Beijing possesses a robust foundation for the development of productive services.
In 2025, the added value of Beijing's service sector reached 4.5 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.8%, accounting for 86% of its GDP, with productive services making up over 50%.
Beijing has firmly seized the opportunity for the large-scale development of the artificial intelligence industry, with the number of AI enterprises in the city exceeding 2,400 and the core industry scale nearing 350 billion yuan.
It has registered 132 large models, accounting for over 30% of the national total, firmly ranking first in the country.
"Beijing was the first in the nation to complete the industrial structure transition from being industry-led to service-led," Xu Yizhi stated.
The vigorous growth of Beijing's productive services stems from forward-looking top-level planning and clear industrial positioning.
At the beginning of this century, Beijing clearly identified productive services as key to adjusting the service sector structure and developing high-end services.
In 2008, leveraging the Olympic opportunity, it further proposed accelerating the formation of a productive services-led economic structure.
"Serving production" replaced "serving daily life" as the new cornerstone of the tertiary sector.
Why has Beijing's productive services sector been able to thrive? In Xu Yizhi's view, the fundamental reason lies in "fully leveraging the capital's resource advantages, finding markets and demand in the process of serving the nation's new industrialization, informatization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization, thereby achieving effective alignment."
The capital concentrates the nation's top educational, technological, talent, and financial resources, giving it unique endowments.
However, if this "feast" were only for internal consumption, it would be constrained by space and market limitations.
"Productive services in Beijing lack sufficient 'buyers' locally; its market is nationwide and global."
This means that the algorithms from Zhongguancun, the capital from Financial Street, and the decisions from various headquarters are ultimately anchored in the vast industrial upgrading demands across the nation and the globe.
Xu Yizhi summarized Beijing's experience as "guiding action according to circumstances," noting that "the government's role is to mobilize all parties' enthusiasm, transform these resource advantages into real productive forces, effectively align with market demand while serving the nation, and improve the efficiency of market resource allocation."
In the development of productive services, the relationship between the government and the market is key to industrial quality improvement.
Xu Yizhi emphasized that productive services are the outcome of deepened social division of labor and highly developed economies, with their development core lying in the efficient market allocation of resources.
The government's core responsibility is not to directly intervene in industrial development but to optimize the business environment, build platforms for supply-demand matching, accurately identify the service needs of local real-economy enterprises, connect them with high-quality service market entities, break down supply-demand barriers, and foster platforms like the Beijing International Service Trade Fair to achieve an efficient pattern of "government building the stage and enterprises performing."
While analyzing Beijing's development experience, Xu Yizhi, based on the national industrial landscape, accurately assessed the strengths and weaknesses of Shandong's industrial development, providing precise guidance for its industrial quality enhancement.
He fully affirmed Shandong's foundation in the real economy: "Shandong's industrial system is the most comprehensive in the nation—it has marine resources, energy resources, and is strong in coal, petroleum, gold, shipbuilding, light industry, home appliances, agriculture, and logistics. Its position as a major economic province is very stable and solid."
Simultaneously, Shandong has a high match between employment and economic development, with a balanced and reasonable industrial structure, making it one of the provinces with the optimal industrial structure and the most solid real economy in northern China.
At the same time, Shandong also faces shortcomings in its industrial upgrading process.
Xu Yizhi pointed out directly that while Shandong has a complete industrial system and enormous demand from industrial and agricultural production, its productive services sector suffers from an insufficient number of supply entities and relatively weak capabilities.
Local high-quality service supply cannot match the vast demand for real industrial upgrading.
Compared to the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions, Shandong has insufficient concentration of market entities in productive services, relatively lagging development in emerging fields like AI, and the empowering effect of the industry has not been fully unleashed.
Regarding the path for Shandong to cultivate and strengthen its productive services, Xu Yizhi proposed a core strategy of "two-pronged approach: local cultivation and external introduction."
"Productive services themselves are the product of deepened social division of labor and the result of a highly developed economy. They do not exist naturally but gradually differentiate from industrial and agricultural production. Shandong must leverage its solid real industrial foundation and deeply tap into local market demand."
He suggested that Shandong could adopt a two-pronged approach of "local cultivation plus external introduction." On one hand, encourage local high-quality enterprises to spin off specialized service segments, promoting the independent market operation of businesses such as human resources, financial investment, product design, logistics and transportation, and supply chain support, thereby rapidly growing local productive service entities based on the original industrial foundation.
On the other hand, target the introduction of scarce formats such as investment banking, private equity funds, technology innovation funds, and AI large model services to complete the high-end service supply system.
Seizing the opportunities presented by the artificial intelligence era is a key lever for Shandong to achieve industrial leapfrogging.
Xu Yizhi recommended that Shandong focus on new application scenarios such as industrial internet, AI large models, smart factories, and dark factories, precisely aligning with the intelligent, green, and high-end transformation needs of local advantageous industries like chemicals, high-end equipment, advanced manufacturing, and marine industries.
Using technological empowerment, financial support, and scenario implementation as key drivers, cultivate a group of new productive service enterprises that suit Shandong's industrial characteristics.
Through quality and upgrading on the service side, empower the manufacturing sector to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and iterate innovation, comprehensively enhancing Shandong's industrial core competitiveness and international market competitiveness.
Comments