August 9 (Xinhua) — The State Council Information Office held a press conference on August 9 to brief on the "Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Service Consumption" and to answer questions from reporters.

　　Chang Tiewei, head of the Employment, Income Distribution and Consumption Department of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said at the meeting that in order to expand service consumption in key areas such as elderly care and childcare, culture, tourism and sports, and domestic services, the NDRC, in line with its functions, has mainly carried out work in three aspects.

　　**The first aspect** focuses on bottlenecks and pain points to improve services for "the elderly and the young." To better meet the multi-level and diversified service consumption needs of the elderly, the NDRC took the lead in drafting and submitting for issuance the "Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Developing the Silver Economy and Enhancing the Well-Being of the Elderly." It has comprehensively utilized funding channels such as central budget investment, local government special bonds, and special re-lending for inclusive elderly care to support the construction of facilities for the elderly care and childcare service systems.

　　The second aspect is to shore up weak links and strengthen areas of weakness, and to support the upgrading of cultural, tourism and sports facilities and equipment. The "14th Five-Year Plan" cultural protection, inheritance and utilization project was organized and implemented, and central budget investment was arranged to support eligible cultural and tourism projects, shoring up key infrastructure weaknesses such as roads leading to scenic areas, tourist toilets, parking lots, and charging facilities; in the work of large-scale equipment renewal and trade-in of consumer goods, the NDRC took the lead in issuing the "Implementation Plan for Promoting Equipment Renewal in the Culture and Tourism Sectors," implemented eight major actions including the renewal and upgrading of sightseeing facilities, and included eligible key projects in the scope of funding support such as ultra-long-term special government bonds. It has strengthened the construction of sports parks and public football fields to improve the conditions of fitness facilities for all.

　　The third aspect is to promote transformational development and improve the quality of domestic service supply. The "Ten Major Actions" for improving the quality of domestic services were deployed, and special actions such as deepening industry-education integration in domestic services and bringing domestic services into communities were led and deepened; focusing on the three priorities of cost reduction, standardization and high quality, the domestic service industry is being accelerated in its transformation from an intermediary system to an employee system, promoting the professionalization of domestic work.

　　Chang Tiewei said that next, the NDRC will take service consumption as an important lever for expanding and upgrading consumption, give full play to the guiding and driving role of central funds such as central budget investment, and actively support the development of key areas of service consumption; advance the implementation of the project to build embedded service facilities in urban communities, embedding life services into communities to better meet the public's demand for quality, inclusive services "at the doorstep" and "downstairs"; and build leading enterprises and service brands to lead the upgrading of consumer demand with high-quality supply.