Residents shop for specialty foods at Xinglong Lake Park in Yongchuan District, Chongqing. (Photo/Xinhua)
Chongqing - On June 9, Chongqing convened a citywide conference on service sector development, highlighting the industry’s growing role as a key engine of economic growth.
Stronger producer services, rising consumer demand, digital innovation, and deeper economic opening have driven the city’s 2025 performance.
Data presented at the conference showed that Chongqing’s service sector maintained strong momentum in 2025. Its added value reached 1.98 trillion yuan (about 275.4 billion U.S. dollars), accounting for 58.8% of the city’s GDP and growing 6.2% year on year, faster than overall economic growth. The sector contributed 67.4% of Chongqing’s economic expansion.
Digital technologies are becoming a major driver of growth in Chongqing’s service sector. The city has advanced industrial digitalization through artificial intelligence and smart manufacturing, while the Western China Data Exchange has grown into one of China’s leading data trading platforms.
Producer services played an increasingly important role in supporting industrial upgrading and manufacturing transformation. Software and information services revenue surpassed 500 billion yuan in 2025, while logistics, finance, and e-commerce each exceeded the 100-billion-yuan mark.
The sector's growing sophistication is also helping Chongqing companies expand overseas. On May 25, a 300,000-tonne-per-year fertilizer plant in Zambia produced qualified urea, marking the launch of East Africa’s first modern urea facility.
Chongqing Jianfeng Industrial Technical Services Co., based in Fuling, provided commissioning and operation support for the project. The company trained local workers and helped build a local operations team, marking its first overseas integrated “commissioning plus operations” service contract.
Jianfeng said the model upgrades traditional industrial services from fragmented maintenance work to a full package covering training, commissioning, maintenance, inspection and production management. It has completed 18 overseas projects.
The case reflects Chongqing’s broader push to expand high-end services abroad. Backed by the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC), China-Europe freight trains and the Yangtze River route, the city is growing in cross-border e-commerce, bonded maintenance, international logistics, cross-border finance and advisory services.
In 2025, Chongqing’s services trade rose 7%, while services accounted for 75.2% of the city’s utilized foreign investment. Financing linked to the ILSTC exceeded 730 billion yuan, helping cross-border payments with corridor countries and regions top 100 billion U.S. dollars.
A freight train on the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor waits for departure at Tuanjiecun Station in Chongqing. (Photo/Xinhua)
How everyday services are powering Chongqing’s economy
Consumer spending and tourism remained major growth drivers. Chongqing retained its position as China’s most influential night-economy city for a fourth consecutive year. The municipality received more than 500 million domestic tourist visits in 2025, while tourism revenue increased 11% year on year.
The city also boosted consumption by introducing new retail and cultural experiences. In Chongqing’s Jiefangbei commercial district, hundreds of international brands and first stores opened, while new attractions transformed heritage sites and former air raid shelters into popular destinations.
In Liangjiang New Area, an abandoned factory cinema was converted into a bustling teahouse. These efforts helped lift retail sales of consumer goods to 1.67 trillion yuan in 2025, the highest among Chinese cities.
Public services also continued to expand alongside rising consumer demand. Authorities promoted elderly care, childcare, and neighborhood convenience services, with more than 60,000 households completing age-friendly home renovations.
Officials said Chongqing will continue opening-up measures and foster emerging business models to strengthen the service sector’s role in long-term economic growth.
(Lu Wangqing, as an intern, also contributed to the report)