Nine departments: actively developing the first economic development, nurturing a group of leading new consumer enterprises.

On September 16, the Ministry of Commerce and eight other departments issued a notice on "Several Policy Measures to Expand Service Consumption", proposing to carry out pilot city construction of new formats, new models, and new scenarios for service consumption. Actively developing first-release economy, promoting innovation and enriching service consumption scenarios, supporting the cross-border cooperation of high-quality consumption resources and well-known IP, creating a batch of new consumption scenarios integrating business, travel, culture, sports, and health, nurturing a group of leading new consumer enterprises. Encouraging the introduction of excellent foreign sports events, supporting local holding of mass sports events, creating a batch of high-profile boutique events, professional leagues, and sports competition performance brands with independent intellectual property rights. Continuously carrying out activities such as "travel with the event", "sports events entering scenic spots, neighborhoods, commercial districts", "enjoying exciting events and tasting Chinese cuisine", and leveraging the driving effects of sports events and related activities. The original text is as follows: The Ministry of Commerce and other nine departments issued a notice on "Several Policy Measures to Expand Service Consumption" Service consumption is an important support for improving people's livelihood and an important direction for consumption transformation and upgrading, playing an important role in promoting high-quality economic development. In order to implement the decision-making arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, to stimulate consumption and expand domestic demand more vigorously, the following measures are proposed. 1. Cultivate service consumption promotion platforms (1) Implement the action plan to improve the quality of service consumption. Issue the "Action Plan to Improve the Quality of Service Consumption", proposing measures from strengthening policy support, establishing platform carriers, expanding opening to the outside world, strengthening standard leadership, optimizing consumption environment, and other aspects. Continue to deepen the brand building of "Buying in China", carry out a series of "Service Consumption Season" activities to promote consumption, focus on key areas that are close to people's lives, have great potential demand, and strong driving force, carry out activities to promote service consumption, cultivate service consumption brands, and create service consumption hotspots. (led by the Ministry of Commerce) (2) Carry out pilot city construction of new formats, new models, and new scenarios for service consumption. Actively develop the first-release economy, promote innovation and enrich service consumption scenarios, support the cross-border cooperation of high-quality consumption resources and well-known IP, create a batch of new consumption scenarios integrating business, travel, culture, sports, and health, and cultivate a group of new consumer leading enterprises. (Responsibilities divided between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce) 2. Enriching high-quality service supply (3) Expand high-level opening of the service industry. Promote the orderly opening of the Internet, culture, and other fields, expand the opening pilot of telecommunications, healthcare, education, and other fields. Accelerate the comprehensive pilot demonstration of service industry opening up. Support more service consumption areas to be included in the "Encouraging Foreign Investment Industrial Catalog", providing differentiated service supply. (Responsibilities divided among the Central Propaganda Department, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Health Commission) (4) Coordinate the use of existing funding channels to support the launch of a batch of refined creations in literature, art, film, animation, etc., fully utilize existing venues, create a batch of theaters, museums, art galleries, science museums with strong radiating effects, cultivate a group of popular cultural activities and event brands, optimize cultural product and service supply. Support World Heritage Sites, cultural and museum venues, intangible cultural heritage institutions, historic and cultural cities, tap the market value of traditional cultural IP, and create new service consumption scenarios. Support eligible regions in innovative online entertainment, animation, games, film and television works, etc., to drive offline scene innovation with online traffic. (Responsibilities divided among the Party Committee's Propaganda Department, Finance Department, Commerce Department, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Radio and Television Department, Cultural Relics Department) (5) Based on actual conditions, adjust the operating hours of popular cultural and museum venues and scenic spots in a tailored manner, optimize reservation methods, and encourage non-reservation visits. Encourage cultural and museum venues to innovate exhibition methods, with their income used for performance incentives according to regulations, and performance salaries reasonably determined based on work effectiveness. Encourage cultural and museum units to open up their collections, cooperate with social forces to develop cultural and creative, digital products, promote various cultural exhibitions organized in a market-oriented way to enter shopping malls, communities, and parks. (Responsibilities divided among the Finance Department, Human Resources and Social Security Department, Commerce Department, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Cultural Relics Department) (6) Encourage the introduction of excellent foreign sports events, support local holding of mass sports events, create a batch of high-profile boutique events, professional leagues, and sports competition performance brands with independent intellectual property rights. Continuously carry out activities such as "travel with the event", "sports events entering scenic spots, neighborhoods, commercial districts", "enjoying exciting events and tasting Chinese cuisine" to leverage the driving effects of sports events and related activities. (Responsibilities divided among the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and the Sports Authority) (7) Cultivate a diversified education and training market. Regulate the development of non-disciplinary education and training in cultural and art, technology, and sports fields, improve licensing conditions, and non-disciplinary training institutions online and offline may apply for administrative licenses in accordance with the law. Encourage relevant institutions to conduct vocational skills training with a market-oriented approach, improve the training evaluation mechanism. Develop community colleges, citizen night schools, and elderly training in an orderly manner, providing high-quality skill training, cultural and art training, encouraging eligible regions to provide free or low-rental venue facilities. (Responsibilities divided among the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Civil Affairs, Human Resources and Social Security Ministry, Sports Authority) (8) Accelerate the construction of long-term care insurance system, expand the coverage of long-term care insurance system. Strengthen the training of practitioners in the fields of elderly care, home care services, long-term care, etc., implement relevant support policies. Carry out special training actions for household service vocational skills, improve the professional evaluation system guided by vocational abilities for household services, guide household service enterprises in pre-job training, new apprentice training in companies, technician training, etc. (Responsibilities divided among the Ministry of Education, Finance, Civil Affairs, Human Resources and Social Security, Commerce, and Medical Insurance Authorities, as well as labor unions and women's federations) (9) Eligible regions can provide venue support and appropriate operational subsidies to universal childcare institutions according to local conditions. Support eligible kindergartens to enroll 2-3 year old children, develop community-embedded childcare services, family childcare points, encourage employers to provide childcare services, and give policy support according to relevant regulations. (Responsibilities divided among the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Education, Finance, and Health Commission, as well as labor unions) (10) Relax market access for high-end medical care, leisure, and vacation fields, reduce restrictive measures, attract more foreign investment, private capital, and increase the supply of quality services. (Responsibilities divided among the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and the National Health Commission) 3. Stimulate the increment of service consumption (11) Attract more overseas consumers. Expand one-sided visa-free countries in an orderly manner, optimize regional visa-free policies, continuously optimize visa policies, communication, accommodation, payment, and other facilitation measures for foreigners coming to China, and issue 5-year multiple entry visas to more eligible individuals. Strengthen the international promotion of China's cultural and tourism resources, leverage the advantages of traditional cultural resources such as food, traditional Chinese medicine, cultural relics, etc., encourage travel agencies, online travel platforms to offer characteristic tours suitable for foreigners. Strengthen the brand building of "Study in China", attract excellent foreign students to come to China for study, and cultivate markets for international medical treatment, exhibitions, and other areas. (Led by the Ministry of Commerce, with responsibilities divided among the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, National Health Commission, People's Bank of China, National Immigration Administration, State Administration of Cultural Heritage, and State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine) (12) Expand digital service consumption, encourage e-commerce platforms to innovate digital service consumption scenarios that integrate online and offline communication and information technology, support digital transformation and promotion operations of life service enterprises. Carry out typical application cases of "artificial intelligence + consumption", continuously create new products, new scenarios, and new hotspots for information consumption. (Responsibilities divided among the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) (13) Optimize student holiday arrangements and improve supporting policies. Without changing the total number of holidays and total teaching hours, encourage eligible regions to scientifically adjust the teaching and holiday time of each school year based on factors such as climate conditions, production arrangements, implementation of paid annual leave for employees, etc., explore setting spring and autumn breaks for primary and secondary schools, correspondingly shorten winter and summer vacations, and increase service consumption time for tourism and travel. (Responsibilities divided among the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security) 4. Strengthen financial support (14) Coordinate the use of various funding channels such as central budget investment and local government special bonds to support the construction of cultural, tourism, elderly care, childcare, sports, and other service facilities that meet conditions. (Responsibilities divided among the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance) (15) Support the Service Trade Innovation Development Guidance Fund to invest in eligible service consumption enterprises in accordance with market principles, encouraging social capital to increase investment in related service consumption areas. (Responsibilities divided among the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce) (16) Comprehensive use of monetary and credit policies to support financial institutions in expanding credit in the service consumption field, increase credit support for business entities in the service consumption field, determine loan interest rates at a reasonable level, and sustainably support service consumption. Encourage financial institutions to innovate and develop specialized financial products and services based on the characteristics and financing needs of service consumption business entities. Encourage financial institutions to strengthen support for diverse service consumption scenarios, cluster areas, and related key project construction. (Responsibilities divided among the People's Bank of China and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission) (17) Increase support for consumption credit. Support local areas to share the risk of consumption credit in key areas by establishing new risk compensation special funds or including them in existing funds, provide interest subsidies for key area consumption loans, guide financial institutions and merchants to develop products and services suitable for the characteristics of service consumption through cooperation, forming a combination of "government subsidies + financial support + merchant discounts". (Responsibilities divided among the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce, People's Bank of China, and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission) (18) Focus on service consumption areas closely related to residents' daily lives, provide financial interest support to service industry entities, promote the reduction of financing costs for business entities, and stimulate the vitality of the service consumption market. (Responsibilities divided among the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce, People's Bank of China, and other departments) 5. Improve statistical monitoring system (19) Optimize service consumption statistical methods. Accelerate the measurement of regional service retail sales volume to objectively reflect regional service consumption development. Innovate statistical monitoring methods, encourage eligible regions to use big data and other information technology means to conduct service consumption monitoring and analysis. (Responsibilities divided among the National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Commerce) All relevant departments and units must resolutely implement the decision-making arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, promote the implementation and refinement of various policy measures. The Ministry of Commerce should play a role in coordinating the development of service consumption, lead the improvement of supporting policies, increase the supply of high-quality services, and better meet the diverse service consumption needs of the people. Ministry of Commerce, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Education Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security Ministry of Culture and Tourism, National Health Commission, People's Bank of China September 5, 2025 This article is selected from the "Official Website of the Ministry of Commerce"; GMTEight Editor: Xu Wenqiang.