Beijing to Take the Lead in Opening Service SectorBeijing is expected to take the lead among other regions in China to open its service sector to the world after China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).Beijing has applied to the Chinese government to be an experimental city in opening its telecom, banking, insurance and other sectors after the WTO entry, Li Zhao, director of Beijing Foreign Trade and Economic Commission, revealed Wednesday at the on-going 5th Beijing-Hong Kong Economic Cooperation Symposium. The service industry is expected to account for some 63 percent of the city's total gross domestic product by 2005, rising from the current 58.3 percent, said Chai Xiaozhong, a member of the Beijing Municipal Development Planning Commission. He promised that the metropolis will provide a better environment for the growth of the service sector by opening more business fields and accelerating reform on examination and approval procedures for companies. Statistics show that by the end of last year, Beijing reached agreements with overseas investors engaged in the service businesses to introduce 23.2 billion U.S. dollars, which is about 63.6 percent of the amount for all the industries. Some 10.7 billion U.S. dollars has been used in developing service businesses over the past years, some 50.7 percent of the total value in used overseas investment. Seeing bright development prospects and a sound business environment, overseas investors have shown strong interest in Beijing's service sector. Nearly 740 overseas-funded enterprises were approved to run service-oriented businesses last year, involving a contractual investment of some nearly 3.3 billion U.S. dollars. The amount has tripled the sum of the primary and secondary industries, official statistics indicate. Beijing has vowed to expand business fields of commerce, education, culture and medical services to bring in overseas capital, modern management skills and service technologies, strengthen cooperation in tourism, accounting, legal affairs and other sectors, which are expected to hasten the city's opening of the service industry. |
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