As the nation's sole comprehensive demonstration zone for expanding the opening-up of the service industry and the China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone (collectively referred to as the "Two Zones"), Beijing is leveraging high-level openness as an engine to fully propel the high-quality development of its service sector. In recent years, Beijing has consistently prioritized technology empowerment, open cooperation, and a people-centered approach, placing greater emphasis on advancing the service industry. The sector's overall scale continues to expand, its industrial structure remains high-end and efficient, and the momentum for technological innovation is robust, contributing "Beijing's strength" to the construction of a new development paradigm.
The service sector serves as the core pillar of Beijing's high-quality economic development. Data indicates that, from an industrial structure perspective, services have long accounted for over 75% of Beijing's regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a proportion significantly higher than the national average. Furthermore, according to Beijing's economic data for the first quarter, the added value of the city's service sector reached 1.1 trillion yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of 6.4% at constant prices, which is 1 percentage point higher than the same period last year. This growth contributed 5.6 percentage points to the increase in Beijing's regional GDP.
Within this vast industrial landscape, information transmission, software and information technology services, along with the financial industry, constitute a powerful "twin-engine." In the first quarter, these two sectors combined accounted for approximately half of the service industry's added value. This not only reflects Beijing's advantages as the capital in financial management and technological innovation but also highlights the high-end and efficient nature of its industrial structure. Concurrently, Beijing is capitalizing on its functional strengths as the capital by actively hosting international exhibitions, performances, and sporting events, accelerating the development of new urban vitality districts, and allowing the "Beijing Service" brand to shine equally brightly in high-quality life service areas such as culture, tourism, and healthcare.
Technological innovation is the fundamental pathway for developing new quality productive forces and serves as the core driving force behind Beijing's service sector development. Beijing has established a mechanism for the integrated development of technological innovation and industry, initially forming a "Beijing model." Within the framework of the "Two Zones" development, Beijing is deeply advancing the "Artificial Intelligence Plus" initiative, accelerating the layout in frontier areas such as 6G and satellite internet, and vigorously enhancing the original innovation service capabilities of the technology service industry. As a "testing ground" for reform and opening-up, Beijing has introduced a series of pioneering and experimental breakthrough policies under the "Two Zones" initiative. From taking the lead in piloting expanded openness in value-added telecommunications and healthcare to issuing the nation's first scenario-based negative list for cross-border data transfers, and iteratively upgrading the international professional qualification recognition catalog, Beijing consistently leads the nation in institutional openness.
According to information from the Municipal Commerce Bureau, Beijing established over 2,400 new foreign-invested enterprises in 2025, setting a new historical record. Over the past year, during the process of expanding openness in the service sector, the city has cumulatively implemented more than 70 nationally breakthrough policies, replicated and promoted over 80 innovative achievements nationwide, and promoted more than 150 innovative practices citywide. In all previous national comprehensive pilot demonstration assessments for expanding the opening-up of the service industry, Beijing has consistently ranked first, contributing "Beijing's practice" to building a high-standard service industry open institutional system.
Having entered a mature stage of development, Beijing's service sector steadfastly adheres to combining a "people-centered" approach with "urban governance." On one hand, Beijing focuses on meeting the care service needs of both the elderly and children, strategically supplementing convenient community service facilities based on demand, and actively developing personalized services such as internet healthcare and mobile diagnostics, ensuring that the fruits of service sector development tangibly benefit people's livelihoods. On the other hand, drawing from its experience in operating a megacity and ensuring major events, Beijing is vigorously developing energy-saving and environmental protection services, forming a set of "Beijing Service" solutions for social governance that can be promoted more widely.
Relevant officials from the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau stated that in the next step, Beijing will proactively align with high-standard international economic and trade rules, promote the introduction of the 3.0 plan for the comprehensive demonstration zone for expanding the opening-up of the service industry, foster differentiated development among comprehensive bonded zones, implement actions to enhance the openness capacity of key industrial parks, and achieve new improvements in the level of institutional openness, the effectiveness of systemic reform, and the quality of the open economy, injecting fresh momentum into higher-level openness and deeper reforms.
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