Economic Structure of China
2020/11/12

Economic Structure of China

Role of the Services Sector 

Since the 2008 global economic crisis, big changes have taken place in China’s economic structure. In 2015, for the first time, the services sector contributed over 50% to China's GDP. In 2019, the added value of the services sector reached RMB 53,423.3 billion, an increase of 6.9% over the previous year. The services sector’s added value accounted for 53.9% of GDP, 14.9 percentage points higher than the secondary industry; the services sector also contributed 59.4% to national economic growth, 22.6 percentage points higher than the secondary industry. Within the services sector, key contributors to its stable growth were information transmission, software, and information technology, which registered a yearon-year growth of 20.4%, driving the combined index up by 1.8 percentage points. Leasing and business services also experienced rapid growth, with a growth of 9.2%. Also notable was the financial sector, its growth accelerating significantly compared with the previous year. 

Transformation and Upgrade in Manufacturing Industry 

China has established an independent modern industrial system with complete categories of industries, including 41 large categories, 207 medium sectors, and 666 small subsectors, making it the only country covering all industrial categories indexed in the United Nations (UN) International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC). In a number of high-tech industries, including aerospace, satellite navigation, smartphones, computers, and electro-communication, China has established a systematic, fully-equipped, and powerful industrial ecology moving towards the middle and high end of the global industrial chain. The high-end manufacturing industry represented by high-speed railway and large passenger aircraft, as well as the high-tech industry represented by information technology, have maintained trends of rapid growth. From 2013 to 2018, value-added output in China's high - tech industry and equipment manufacturing industry grew at annual average rates of 11.7% and 9.5% respectively. In 2019, these values saw respective growth of 8.8% and 6.7% over the previous year. 

New Busineses Types Restructuring Economic Development Model 

In recent years, the Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence have been deeply integrated into the real economy. New hotspots like intelligent retail and production capacity sharing are continuously emerging. Technological innovations are nearly non-stop in such fields as mobile communication, the Internet of Things, blockchain, smart wearables, and artificial intelligence, while their application scenarios in traffic, medical services, tourism, and smart city construction are increasingly sophisticated. From 2015 to 2018, China's trading volume in e-commerce and online retail experienced average annual growths of 17.8% and 28.8%, respectively. In 2018, the online retail of physical commodities accounted for 18.4% of the total consumer goods sales. From 2014 to 2018, average annual growth rates in the business income of the Internet and of software/IT/Internet service enterprises above designated size were 32.8% and 21.2%, respectively, far exceeding business income growth of service sector enterprises above designated size (11.1%).