The proposal to speed up the development of new business forms and models focusing on promoting online business forms, services, and management in the service sector was made at the meeting on advancing the high-quality development of Chongqing’s service sector on April 22. It aims to propel the integrated O2O growth of the industry.

Chongqing Municipal People’s Government and enterprises across the city have taken proactive moves to boost the high-quality development of the service sector in the wake of the huge blow dealt by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The epidemic forces enterprises to improve their service quality

Peng Heliang, Deputy Director of Chongqing Municipal Commission of Commerce, introduced some new characteristics and highlights in the development of Chongqing’s trading and commercial services under the shock resulting from the epidemic.

One is the new vitality of online consumption, with such businesses as catering, housekeeping, and wholesale and retail turning to online service.

Statistics show that online retail enterprises and self-employed ones have seen their year-on-year increase of 36.6% in sales in the first quarter this year, 15.2% higher than the first two months, and 33% higher than the same period last year.
The other is enterprises’ more emphasis on service quality. The epidemic forces service enterprises to provide better service through moves, including employee training, formulation of service standards, optimization of service details, and more investment in intelligent equipment.

16 measures to propel the work resumption in the service sector

On April 14, General Office of Chongqing Municipal People’s Government issued the Opinions on Reducing the Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak to Promote the Resumption and Development of Service Sector, to advance the resumption and development of service sector in the city.

The Opinions specifies 16 measures covering three aspects.

The first one is to promote the overall resumption and development of service sector, including such fives measures as driving the resumption and expected production capacity of the service sector, and the resumption and development of producer services and that of the cultural tourism industry and trading and commercial services, as well as speeding up the project construction.

The second one involves speeding up the transformation of the service sector. It falls into six moves, including accelerating digital transformation, cultivating new business forms and models, propelling standardization, integration, and innovation, accelerating the opening-up of the service sector, and strengthening the cultivation of main market players.

The last one comes to optimizing the supporting factors for the development of the service sector. It covers five measures, including strengthening the logistics support, improving the talent and employment service, reinforcing financial aid, reducing taxes and fees according to law, and improving credit service.

Encouraging the new business forms and models of online Otaku economy

Peng Heliang expressed that the Chongqing Municipal Commission of Commerce would endeavor to minimize the loss caused by the epidemic through speeding up the resumption and development of the service sector and its transformation. The specific measures are as follows:

To provide support in carrying out promotional campaigns, jointly hold the Chengdu-Chongqing consumption festival, and roll out policies and measures for encouraging the renewal of automobiles and home appliance and promoting catering consumption;

To speed up building Chongqing into an international consumption center, to boost the development of night economy and the continuous recovery of consumption market;

To accelerate the transformation of trading and commercial services, provide support for life service enterprises involving online supermarket, restaurant, and housekeeping, and influencer marketing, to facilitate them to provide the same life service experience as offline for consumers and maintain consumers’ enthusiasm for the new online consumption.

To encourage contactless delivery, boost the Otaku economy, and cultivate new business forms and models of consumer services.

In this regard, taking the hotpot industry, for example, 80% of members of the Chongqing Hotpot Association start their services of contactless delivery during the special period, and most of them do it for the first time. That drives the new business of the online Otaku economy of such enterprises across the city.