China Advances Opening-Up of Service Sector with New Policies and Rising Foreign Investment

China is steadily pushing forward the opening-up and cooperation of its service sector, with a series of new policies rolled out to expand market access and boost inbound consumption, according to an official document recently issued by the State Council.

The Guidelines on Promoting the Expansion and Quality Improvement of the Service Sector, referred to as the Guidelines, proposes to further expand pilot opening-up in areas including value-added telecommunications, biotechnology and wholly foreign-owned hospitals. It also aims to improve the management system of the negative list for cross-border trade in services and promote the export of cultural and tourism services to expand inbound consumption.

Experts interviewed by China Securities Journal on April 22 noted that the issuance of the Guidelines is a further implementation of the spirit of the National Service Industry Conference, pointing out a clearer direction for the high-level opening-up of China’s service sector. Since the start of this year, policies supporting the opening-up of the service sector have been continuously strengthened from top-level design to local practice, accelerating foreign investment layout and releasing opening-up dividends.

Guo Yingfeng, associate researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, told China Securities Journal that the arrangements for service sector opening-up this time are not a simple continuation, but an all-round upgrade from "pilot exploration" to "systematic integration" and from "factor flow" to "rule alignment".

The Guidelines sets a target that by 2030, remarkable progress will be made in the high-quality development of the service sector, with its total scale exceeding 100 trillion yuan and a development pattern featuring higher quality, better structure, superior quality and greater vitality basically formed.

Data from the Ministry of Commerce shows that China actually used 111.22 billion yuan of foreign capital in the service sector from January to February 2026, demonstrating strong appeal of its service market. The medical field has become a popular track for foreign investment. Tianjin Pengrui Li Hospital, China’s first wholly foreign-owned tertiary general hospital built by Singapore’s Pengrui Li Group, officially opened in February last year. Another project, Pengrui Li International Hospital in Guangzhou, is scheduled to open by the end of this year as the first wholly foreign-owned tertiary general hospital in South China.

Wu Yufeng, general manager of Pengrui Li Group East China, said the group expects Guangzhou to further strengthen policy innovation, break through bottlenecks in high-end medical development and promote the connection between cross-border medical care and international insurance direct payment.

In terms of travel services, a key area accounting for more than a quarter of China’s total service trade volume, opening-up is accelerating. Benefiting from the unilateral visa-free policy, inbound tourism has entered a new stage of large-scale expansion. Tongcheng Travel launched its international travel platform HopeGoo in Hong Kong in 2025, which has achieved rapid growth over the past year.

A new version of the tax refund policy for departing tourists is expected to be rolled out by the end of April, which will further optimize the inbound consumption experience. With the implementation of the Guidelines, more detailed opening-up measures will be introduced to improve entry convenience, optimize consumption environment and enhance cultural and tourism supply, Guo Yingfeng added.