Measures aim to ensure hub status

The Chengdu Commission of Commerce has taken a series of measures to restructure local industries, seek new sources of development and improve local people's livelihoods in a bid to build the city into a regional service sector hub.

The service sector achieved added value of 140.3 billion yuan ($20.99 billion) in the first three months of this year, rising 8.9 percent compared with the same period last year. The figure accounted for 53.9 percent of the city's GDP over the same period.

In the sector, logistics contributed 20.1 billion yuan, rising 8.7 percent and financing contributed 22.8 billion yuan, up 10.2 percent.

Technical service providers achieved revenue of 33.8 billion yuan over the period, up 6.5 percent, and companies in the health service business made 2.4 billion yuan, up 3.5 percent.

A number of national pilot mechanisms have been launched, such as the Sino-German cooperation platform for innovative industries, the national cross-border e-commerce park and the national pilot system for innovation in service trade.

In March, the city government unveiled a comprehensive 10-year plan for its service sector that called for increasing modernization of the traditional service industries and more projects in the emerging sectors.

Innovative management and supervision mechanisms and the public-private partnership model have been used to develop a number of the major projects.

In the first five months of this year, the local government invested 178.33 billion yuan in the fixed assets in the service sector, up 16.8 percent year-on-year, including 44.17 billion yuan invested in 335 major projects recognized by the government.

Over the same period, the city's trade volume in e-commerce increased 32.7 percent to reach 567.2 billion yuan, 4.1 percentage points higher than the average provincial growth rate.

Three counties and 30 villages have been recognized as rural e-commerce pilot areas.

The government believes that the Belt and Road Initiative will help the city's global development, and with a number of new international trade channels being opened, including the Chengdu-Europe Express Railway Service, the city's import and export volume this year is expected to grow 11.7 percent to reach $44.3 billion.

In the first five months this year, 82 new overseas companies applied to invest in Chengdu, bringing total investment of nearly $2 billion.

In order to provide local people with an increasingly diverse, global experience, local authorities are also building an international center that will allow them to both shop and sample a wide range of cuisines.

(China Daily 07/23/2016 page7)