Shanghai aims to open up more parts of its service sector to overseas investors, a trade official was quoted as saying in today's China Daily.
Zhang Yixing, deputy director with the Shanghai Municipal Foreign Economic Relations and Trade Commission, said the strategy would target areas including finance, insurance, banking and telecommunications.
The official told a European Union-China service trade seminar held in Shanghai that the city would try to attract overseas investment to "potentially promising" services such as culture, education, exhibitions, sports and tourism.
The two-day seminar, which ended Tuesday, was jointly organized by the Shanghai Association of the International Service Trade, the EU-China WTO Program and the European Union Chamber of Commerce.
Shanghai's service sector currently accounts for around 50 percent of its gross domestic product compared with the national average of 32 percent.
(eastday.com September 12, 2002)
