At the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee held on July 30th, when deploying the economic work for the second half of the year, it was proposed to "deeply implement the special action to boost consumption, while expanding commodity consumption, and cultivating new growth points for service consumption." Service consumption is connected to both the economy and people's livelihoods, covering areas such as domestic services, elderly care, cultural and tourism, education and sports, residential services, and health services. Expanding service consumption has significant practical and long-term significance. Looking back at the relevant proposals of several Politburo meetings since last year, the importance of service consumption has become increasingly prominent, from "making service consumption an important lever for expanding and upgrading consumption" in July 2024, to "vigorously developing service consumption" in April 2025, and then to "cultivating new growth points for service consumption" in July 2025. Zhang Jun, Chief Economist of China Galaxy Securities, stated that consumer policies are more targeted in practice. On the one hand, they shift from broad "promoting consumption" to structural force, and on the other hand, they continue to expand and upgrade. After effectively releasing the potential of commodity consumption through the trade in policy, service consumption is regarded as a "new growth point". In the recently released macroeconomic "semi annual report", service consumption has shown a good momentum. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first half of the year, retail sales of services increased by 5.3% year-on-year, 0.2 percentage points higher than the growth rate of retail sales of goods during the same period; The per capita service consumption expenditure of residents in China increased by 4.9% year-on-year, accounting for 45.5% of the per capita consumption expenditure of residents. Compared with developed countries, there is still significant room for improvement in service consumption in China. Since the mid-20th century, the added value of the service industry in developed countries has consistently remained above 60% of GDP. In the past 10 years, the average proportion of added value in China's service industry was 54.6%, and there is still great potential to be explored in the future. Service consumption has high added value and strong employment driving effect, which can play a greater role in stabilizing employment and expanding domestic demand. ”Li Chao, Chief Economist of Zheshang Securities, stated. Expanding service consumption not only drives the development of lifestyle services, but also promotes the development of productive services, providing support for cultivating new quality productivity. Wang Wentao, Secretary of the Party Group and Minister of the Ministry of Commerce, wrote in the magazine "Qiushi" in April this year that service consumption involves a wide range of aspects and has strong linkage, which is an important driving force to promote supply optimization, accelerate industrial upgrading, and achieve the transformation of old and new driving forces. Expanding service consumption is conducive to driving production and investment, breaking through the bottleneck and breakpoint of supply and demand connection, forming a virtuous cycle of mutual promotion between supply and demand, and simultaneous production and sales, providing inexhaustible impetus for optimizing industrial structure and high-quality economic development. Since this year, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce and other relevant departments have jointly implemented the policy of "two new", and directly allocated 300 billion yuan of treasury bond funds to local governments to expand the scope of consumer goods for trade in, which will be implemented throughout this year. Two batches of central funds totaling 162 billion yuan have been allocated in January and April this year to support local governments in carrying out the work of exchanging old for new consumer goods in the first and second quarters. Subsequently, 138 billion yuan of central funds will be distributed in batches and orderly in the third and fourth quarters. Several experts suggest that the scope of consumer subsidies in the second half of the year may be further expanded, no longer limited to durable consumer goods, but extended to the service consumption sector. In contrast, subsidies for durable consumer goods may have a certain overdrawn effect on future demand, while service consumption has the characteristics of high consumption frequency and sustainable growth, and "first-time customers" often become "repeat customers". The next step is to tilt consumer vouchers, subsidies, and other measures towards service consumption in order to achieve greater policy effects. ”According to Luo Zhiheng, Chief Economist and Dean of the Research Institute at Yuekai Securities. Ma Hong, a senior researcher at Guangkai Chief Industry Research Institute, stated that in the second half of the year, various regions will actively expand their supply capacity in the service consumption field, including tourism, telecommunications, healthcare, elderly care, and other aspects, to promote the release of residents' service consumption potential, boost domestic demand improvement, and support economic growth. (New Society)