Recently, the State Council of the People's Republic of China approved the issuance of the Working Plan for Supporting Beijing Municipality in Deepening the Building of the National Comprehensive Demonstration Zone for Expanding Opening-up in the Service Sector (hereinafter referred to as the Working Plan).

According to the introduction, the Working Plan aims to deepen the building of Beijing's national comprehensive demonstration zone for expanding opening-up in the service sector (hereinafter referred to as the "demonstration zone") in four main directions.

The first is the iterative upgrade of pilot tasks. Beijing will further advance innovative exploration, stimulate market vitality, and social creativity, and deepen trade and investment cooperation in the service sector. More than 170 new pilot measures have been introduced, indicating a significant growth in the number of measures. The level of opening-up and the intensity of innovation have also been substantially enhanced.

The second is the proactive alignment with international high-standard trade rules. By focusing on institutional opening up and leveraging the advantages of the demonstration zone in terms of its extensive scope, the full array of industries, and abundant samples, Beijing will sort out and systematically align with the rules of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) to support the realization of the city's participation in high-level trade agreements and establish an institutional system for the opening up of high-end service industries. There are about 70 related alignment measures, accounting for 40 percent of all the piloting tasks.

The third is to serve the development of a modernized industrial system. Focusing on key fields such as telecommunications, medicine and healthcare, finance, culture and education, and professional services, Beijing will deepen the reform and opening up of the entire chain and all sections, and optimize the overall ecology of industrial development. The Working Plan specifically proposes nearly 40 pilot tasks for business innovation and cross-disciplinary integration, accurately reflecting the needs of advanced industrial foundations and modernization of the industrial chains.

The fourth is to promote in-depth integration of development and security. Beijing will strengthen risk awareness and bottom-line thinking, construct an efficient and coordinated regulatory system for the service sector, improve safeguarding measures in key fields, and enhance risk prevention and control capabilities to safeguard industrial security.