Sino-European trade looks beyond goods

Meeting rising demand

The demand for higher-quality services from Europe is not confined to factories and businesses.

As incomes rise, people naturally begin to spend more on services, Wang said. According to China's National Bureau of Statistics, the growth rate of service retail sales at 5.3 percent outpaced that of goods retail by 4.2 percentage points in the first half of 2026.

China has pledged to lift household spending through higher wages and improved social welfare, while expanding service consumption in areas including elderly care, childcare, healthcare, culture, tourism, sports, and education. The policies were outlined in the country's first dedicated five-year plan to boost consumption, which was approved by the State Council, China's Cabinet, in July.

The blueprint said China will also ease market access restrictions and further open up service sectors, including telecommunications, the internet, education, culture, and healthcare.

Sports offers a particularly vivid example of how Europe's mature ecosystem of services built around marquee events can fuel Chinese consumers' growing pursuit of elevated lifestyle experiences, as well as unlock further consumption, said Sharon Adesola David, a consultant at Shanghai-based S&M Agency, which specializes in helping international brands navigate the Chinese market.

"Many of the world's most commercially successful sports properties, particularly in football, have been developed in Europe," she said. "Competitions such as the Premier League, La Liga and UEFA tournaments have built sophisticated models around fan engagement, broadcasting rights, sponsorship, youth development and international expansion."

As grassroots leagues boom across China, a European league could work with a Chinese competition to build a membership program, train its fan-engagement team and develop activities that keep supporters involved long after the final whistle. European clubs could also license academy models to Chinese partners and export coaching curricula, scouting methods, management expertise, and more.

"As China continues to develop its sports economy, collaboration with European organizations can also help transform sport from a series of major events into a sustainable industry," she said. "While goods trade can sometimes face challenges around tariffs, supply chains and industrial competition, services are often built around collaboration, expertise and shared value creation … The opportunity is not one side exporting to the other, but both sides contributing to a shared global ecosystem."

Navigating partnership

For China, getting the engine of the service economy up to speed will take time.

"It has something to do with the maturity of the economy and the market, and as I said, where you put your emphasis," said Otero-Iglesias.

Zhou from China Macro Group returned to his earlier point: the need for greater "awareness" of the importance of services.

"If buyers do not value services highly enough, professional expertise cannot command the price it should. That, in turn, constrains supply, because providers may struggle to invest in developing and retaining highly skilled professionals. That is why mindset matters," Zhou said.

"Local governments also need the right policy incentives. Both services and consumption require metrics that properly capture how they are developing. Only then can the sector grow in scale and capability," he added.

Under pressure, China-EU trade relations may remain strained for a while. Luckily, a trade and investment consultation mechanism has been established to seek a cooldown.

At the mechanism's inaugural meeting in June, both sides agreed on the new positioning of a stable and balanced key trading partnership. The second meeting is expected this fall.

For Europe, China will remain complex to navigate. Otero-Iglesias said the issue is less whether Europe approves of the changes China is driving than whether it can adapt.

"There is a lot of fear about China in Europe. My argument has always been: You cannot stop a storm. You will need to weather it. A storm creates big waves, and their force can be challenging. But those waves also create opportunities for you to ride them," he said.

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