Beijing
The service sector has grown into the largest sector in China’s economy, making it an important foundation for the steady growth of China’s economy, according to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.
Statistics show that the added value of China’s service industry increased from 19.5 billion yuan (about 2.83 billion U.S. dollars) to 90.5 billion yuan (about 13.15 billion U.S. dollars) from 1952 to 1978, with an average annual growth rate of 5.4 percent, 0.8 percentage points lower than the average annual growth rate of GDP and 5.6 percentage points lower than the secondary industry. At the end of 1978, the added value of the service sector accounted for 24.6 percent of the GDP, 3.1 percentage points lower than the primary industry and 23.1 percentage points lower than the secondary industry.
And since 1978, when China launched its epoch-making reform and opening-up drive, the service industry has been developing rapidly. The added value of the service industry increased from 90.5 billion yuan (about 13.15 billion U.S. dollars) to 24.4 trillion yuan (about 3,558 billion U.S. dollars) from 1978 to 2012, with an average annual growth rate of 10.8 percent, twice as fast as the average annual growth rate from 1952 to 1978. The growth rate is 0.9 percentage points higher than the average annual growth rate of GDP, and 0.5 percentage points lower than the secondary industry.
In 1985, the share of added value of the service industry in GDP exceeded that of the primary industry, and in 2012, it surpassed that of the secondary industry, rising to 45.5 percent. —CCTV-PLUS
