The service industry in China has demonstrated a positive and stable development trend, with new growth drivers consistently gaining strength. This progress marks the positive achievements in the high-quality development of the nation's service sector during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.
Services Sector Maintains Dominant Role in National Economy for 11 Consecutive Years
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the added value of the service industry grew rapidly, increasing from 57.4851 trillion yuan in 2020 to 80.8879 trillion yuan in 2025. The average annual real growth rate from 2021 to 2025 was 5.8%. The proportion of the service sector's added value to GDP rose from 55.5% in 2020 to 57.7% in 2025, maintaining its position as the "half of the national economy" for 11 consecutive years.
In 2025, the contribution of the service industry to national economic growth reached 61.4%, an increase of 6.3 percentage points from 2020, solidifying its role as the primary driving force for economic growth. The positive development and transformation of the service economy have created a large number of new jobs, providing broader development space and more diverse career choices for workers. By the end of 2025, the number of employees in the service sector reached 357.98 million, accounting for 49.4% of the national workforce, an increase of 1.7 percentage points from the end of 2020, maintaining the highest share among the three major industries.
New service formats such as live-streaming e-commerce, online entertainment, and the sharing economy have emerged continuously, giving rise to a large number of new professions like online streamers, food delivery riders, and video content creators. China has promoted deeper opening-up in key service areas such as tourism, transportation, healthcare, finance, and telecommunications, leading to simultaneous improvements in the scale and quality of service trade. From 2021 to 2025, the total import and export volume of services in China accumulated to 33.5 trillion yuan, a 37.6% increase compared to the 13th Five-Year Plan period, with an average annual growth rate of 12.1%. In 2025, the volume exceeded 8 trillion yuan, reaching a historical high.
With the continuous expansion of visa-exempt countries and the optimization of entry policies in China, "travel to China" and "shopping in China" have continued to gain popularity. In 2025, China's travel service exports reached 394 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 49.5%, marking the fastest growth among all service export sectors for two consecutive years. Cultural exports such as online literature, online films and series, and online games, known as the "new three cultural items," have seen their influence overseas expand significantly, driving rapid growth in knowledge-intensive service exports. In 2025, knowledge-intensive service exports grew by 10.5% year-on-year, accounting for 50.5% of total service exports.
Modern Services as a Key Driver of Industrial Transformation and Upgrading
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the structure of China's service industry has become more optimized, with modern services emerging as a crucial force driving industrial transformation and upgrading. Industries such as information technology and business services have shown strong development momentum. From 2021 to 2025, the average annual growth rates of the added value for the information transmission, software and information technology services sector, and the leasing and business services sector were 13.1% and 10.7%, respectively, 7.7 and 5.3 percentage points higher than the average annual real GDP growth rate.
Breakthroughs and widespread application of new-generation information technologies like big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence have accelerated the shaping of new momentum and advantages in the service sector. Strategic emerging services have continued to perform well. From 2021 to 2025, the operating revenue of strategic emerging service enterprises above a designated size grew at an average annual rate of 9.1%. The explosive development of artificial intelligence has driven an exponential surge in computing power demand, leading to rapid growth in industries such as software development and circuit design.
High-tech services have grown robustly. In 2025, the operating revenue of high-tech service enterprises above a designated size increased by 7.9% compared to the previous year. Investment in related fields has been continuously strengthened. From 2021 to 2025, fixed asset investment in high-tech services grew at an average annual rate of 9.0%, significantly faster than the average annual growth rate of fixed asset investment in the tertiary industry.
The widespread adoption of online transactions has driven the rapid development and expansion of the platform economy. E-commerce new business models characterized by content-driven, social, and instant features have demonstrated strong vitality. Platform transaction volumes have continued to expand. In 2025, the national platform transaction volume (e-commerce transaction volume) reached 46.7 trillion yuan, a 29.1% increase from 2020. Live-streaming e-commerce and instant retail have developed rapidly. By the end of 2025, the number of live-streaming users in China reached 810 million, a 31.9% increase from 2020, with a user penetration rate among internet users reaching 72.3%.
New-format e-commerce is accelerating its transformation from the traditional "selling goods" model to a composite ecosystem encompassing "goods + fulfillment + platform services," becoming a new engine for economic growth in the service sector. In 2025, the transaction volume of live-streaming e-commerce increased by over 10% compared to the previous year, while the transaction volume of instant delivery platforms for categories like catering and fresh produce grew by 30.3% year-on-year.
Significant Progress in the Digital Transformation of Services
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, guided by the goal of improving convenience and service experience, the quality of supply in public service sectors has steadily strengthened, further enhancing the sense of gain and satisfaction among the people. Improvements have continued in education and healthcare. In education, by 2025, the consolidation rate of nine-year compulsory education and the gross enrollment rate for senior secondary education in China reached 96.1% and 92.0%, respectively, increases of 0.9 and 0.8 percentage points from 2020, bringing basic education to the average level of high-income countries worldwide.
In healthcare, by the end of 2025, the number of national health technicians, beds in medical and health institutions, and medical and health institutions reached 13.46 million, 10.04 million, and 1.11 million, respectively, representing growth of 26.0%, 10.3%, and 8.3% from 2020, indicating a continuous increase in healthcare capacity.
Intelligent technologies are increasingly integrated into all areas and the entire process of the service economy, with the digital transformation of the service sector showing significant results. In 2024, 67.9% of enterprises above a designated size in the tertiary industry applied digital technology, of which 62.4% used cloud computing and 39.4% used the Internet of Things. Basic informatization has become a standard configuration for most service enterprises. With the deepening promotion of the "AI+" initiative, the economic forms and business models empowered by artificial intelligence are becoming increasingly diverse. In 2024, 20.2% of enterprises above a designated size in the tertiary industry applied artificial intelligence.
Professional service fields such as finance, logistics, education, and law are utilizing AI technologies like deep learning, intelligent scheduling, and natural language processing to provide consumers with precise and efficient decision support and personalized solutions. Driven by both policy guidance and technological innovation, high value-added services such as R&D design and information services are accelerating their penetration into the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing enterprises are continuously transforming into comprehensive providers of "products + services + solutions," with a significant enhancement in servitization and intelligent models, accelerated construction of smart factories, and an extension of the industrial chain towards higher value-added segments.
By the end of 2025, China had cumulatively built over 35,000 basic-level, over 8,200 advanced-level, and over 500 leading-level smart factories, and had cultivated 15 pioneering-level smart factories. Looking back on the 14th Five-Year Plan period, reforms in all areas of China's service industry were comprehensively deepened, achieving positive results in high-quality development. Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period, it is essential to deeply implement actions to expand capacity and improve quality in the service industry, promote the extension of producer services towards specialization and the high end of the value chain, facilitate the high-quality, diversified, and convenient development of consumer services, cultivate more "China Service" brands, strive to create a new phase of high-quality development in the service sector, and play an even more critical role in advancing the Chinese modernization process.
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