China Eyes Global Integration to Boost Rising Services Consumption

Speaking at a forum during the 2026 China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing, former Vice Minister of Commerce Fang Aiqing highlighted the integration of domestic and international markets as a vital lever to expand service consumption. While service spending accounted for roughly 46 percent of Chinese household consumption in 2025 and continued to grow through mid-2026, officials pointed to a substantial gap compared to developed economies, advocating for institutional opening, adoption of international service standards, and enhanced inbound tourism amenities to fuel high-quality growth.

With retail goods sales growth moderating, service consumption and high-value-added service trade have emerged as essential pillars for domestic demand and external revenue. Aligning domestic regulations with international practices offers a practical roadmap for sustaining consumer momentum while reducing barriers in digital and cross-border services.

Integrating domestic and international markets has emerged as an essential priority for sustaining the growth of China's service consumption, trade officials and policy researchers stated at a forum during the 2026 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing. Speaking at the 2026 International Consumption Trends Conference and High-Quality Development of Service Consumption Forum, Fang Aiqing, former Vice Minister of Commerce and former deputy director of the Economic Committee of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, stressed that bridging home and overseas markets is necessary to meet evolving consumer expectations. According to data cited at the event, China's service retail sales rose 5.5 percent year-on-year in 2025, with per capita service expenditure reaching 46.1 percent of total consumer spending. In the first seven months of 2026, service retail sales maintained a 5.0 percent year-on-year growth rate. Fang observed that while service consumption is expanding significantly faster than physical goods consumption, its 46 percent share of total consumer expenditure remains far below the roughly 69 percent observed in developed economies such as the United States. To close this gap, Fang urged authorities to pursue institutional opening by adopting international service workflows, operational models, and standards, while leveraging domestic cultural resources to upgrade inbound consumer offerings. Zhao Ping, head of the Academy of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, told attendees that service trade and service consumption reinforce each other, noting that digitally deliverable trade has become the primary global engine of commercial expansion despite lingering cross-border trade barriers. National trade data published alongside the event showed that China's total service imports and exports grew 8.3 percent year-on-year to 3.8 trillion yuan in the first half of 2026. Service exports surged 17.6 percent over the same period, led by gains in knowledge-intensive, transport, and telecommunications services.