China – Towards Sustainable Development By Expanding And Reforming Services

To continue its advancement towards the statute of a developed economy, China has to reinvent itself. Its still underdeveloped tertiary sector seems to have the potential to substantially contribute to meeting this imperative, but is it trully able to become the new driver of growth? This article looks at the essential aspects of the services sector’s current condition, as well as the strategies and policies that are addressed to it, alongside the successes it has already achieved and the challenges it still has to face. It concludes that services will become the backbone of the Chinese economy in the long run, yet generating a slower growth rate than manufacturing did in the past. However, in the short and medium-term the tertiary sector will still have a difficult transition to undergo, in which productivity improvement through structural modernization, market opening and acceptance of increased and loyal competition will be the touchstones.