Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for striving to break new ground in the high-quality development of China's service sector.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks in an instruction conveyed at a national conference on the service sector held in Beijing from Tuesday to Wednesday.

China's service sector has steadily expanded in scale and continuously improved in quality and efficiency since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, playing an important role in supporting industrial upgrading, meeting people's livelihood needs and driving job growth, according to Xi.

Underscoring demand-driven development, reform breakthroughs, sci-tech empowerment as well as opening up and cooperation, Xi called for carrying out capacity-expanding and quality-upgrading initiatives in the service sector.

Efforts must be made to advance producer services toward greater specialization and the higher end of the value chain, foster high-quality, diverse and accessible consumer services, and build more "China Services" brands, he said.

Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, both members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, addressed the conference. 　　 Noting that General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions have profoundly expounded the great significance, key principles and main tasks of developing the service sector, Li called for deepening the understanding of the service sector from a strategic and overall perspective to better promote its high-quality and efficient development.

He stressed the need to adapt to the structural trends in demographic shifts, consumption upgrading and industrial transformation to continuously foster new growth drivers in the service sector and advance its digital, intelligent, standardized, integrated and internationalized development toward a higher level.

He urged efforts to make services that meet residents' essential needs more inclusive and of higher quality, expand the supply of upgrade services, and refine and enhance personalized services while strengthening services for technology and advanced manufacturing.

Li also called for efforts to actively expand opening up and deliver more targeted and effective policy support so as to create a good environment for the development of the service sector.

In his concluding remarks, Ding urged solid progress in advancing the main tasks of developing the service sector, highlighting the need to boost innovation, cut costs, enhance efficiency, cater to people's demand, and improve market vitality.

Ding also asked relevant regions and departments to establish and apply a correct understanding of what it means to perform well, and to ensure the effective implementation of decisions and arrangements made by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.

China's service sector surpassed 80 trillion yuan (about 11.65 trillion U.S. dollars) in added value last year, making up 57.7 percent of GDP. It also contributed 61.4 percent to economic growth, up 3.7 percentage points from the 2024 level, and provided around half of total employment.

In the outline of its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) approved by the supreme organ of state power last month, China pledged to further advance reform and opening up in the service sector, refine policy support, and comprehensively boost its quality, efficiency and competitiveness.

The sector is likely to surpass 100 trillion yuan in scale during the 2026-2030 period, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planner.