The Ministry of Commerce and nine other departments recently issued several measures to promote the expansion and upgrading of domestic service consumption, which were released to the public on April 18, 2025.
China released a series of new measures aimed at expanding and upgrading consumption in the domestic services sector on April 18, 2025, as part of broader efforts to stimulate domestic demand. The guidelines were jointly issued by the Ministry of Commerce and eight other departments.
At the competition site of the Women’s Housekeeping Service Skills Competition in Xinhua District, Cangzhou City, Hebei Province, participants demonstrated their elderly care skills (photo taken on August 11, 2023). Image source: Outlook News Weekly
【Knowledge Points】
Maternal and child care, family cleaning, meal cooking, elderly care services… As people’s living standards gradually improve and the aging level continues to deepen, the society’s demand for housekeeping services has increased rigidly, and the requirements for services are becoming increasingly high-quality and diversified. The “Opinions of the State Council on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Service Consumption” issued in August 2024 proposes to tap the basic consumption potential of housekeeping services, optimize and expand service supply, release service consumption potential, and better meet the people’s personalized, diversified and quality service consumption needs. In recent years, the market size of my country’s government service industry has continued to expand, with the number of employees continuously increasing; service demand is diversified and market demand is strong; service quality has gradually improved, and policy support has been continuously strengthened. At the same time, in the process of promoting consumption of housekeeping services, there are still some shortcomings and weaknesses. For example, the supply and demand contradiction in the housekeeping service market leads to uneven service quality; lack of unified standards and incomplete evaluation system; relevant practitioners generally have low education levels and insufficient professional training, making it difficult to meet consumer needs. In addition, problems such as inadequate implementation of policies, insufficient support, and imperfect regulatory system have also caused some irregular and illegal business behaviors in the market to a certain extent. In order to thoroughly implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on developing service consumption, support domestic service consumption, and better meet the people’s needs for a better life, the Ministry of Commerce and nine other departments have issued several measures to promote the expansion and upgrading of domestic service consumption.
A series of measures are carried out in four aspects: improving the quality of domestic service supply, promoting convenient consumption of domestic service, improving support policies for the domestic service industry, and optimizing the consumption environment for domestic service, to promote the expansion and upgrading of domestic service consumption. Among them, it is clearly proposed to encourage domestic service companies to expand emerging service fields such as professional in-depth cleaning, indoor air treatment, and nutrition consultation, and strengthen cross-border integration and development with decoration, home furnishing and other industries. Relying on community outlets, we explore “micro-needs” and provide “micro-services” to meet consumers’ shared housekeeping services such as cleaning, cooking, pick-up and drop-off. Guide domestic service companies and domestic service personnel to participate in social insurance in accordance with the law, and promote flexible employment domestic service personnel who meet the conditions to participate in social insurance at their place of employment. Establish and improve a normalized and diversified domestic service dispute mediation mechanism to create a good industry development environment.
【Important Speech】
China is willing to work with all countries and parties to promote inclusive development through service opening-up, promote linkage and integration through service cooperation, cultivate development momentum through service innovation, create a better future through service sharing, and work together to promote the world economy on a track of continuous recovery.
In developing the services sector and trade in services, China will work with all countries and parties to advance inclusive development through openness, promote connectivity and integration through cooperation, foster drivers for development through innovation, and create a better future through shared services, in a bid to jointly get the world economy onto the track of sustained recovery.
——On September 2, 2023, Xi Jinping’s important speech at the Global Service Trade Summit of the 2023 China International Trade Fair
【Related Words】
High-quality development of service consumption
high-quality development of service consumption
Consumption environment
consumer environment
China Daily Network English Dots and Tianjin Studio (this article was first published on the “Study Strong Country” learning platform)
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[Editor in charge: Chen Danni]
