Historical and cultural blocks blend traditional culture with new trends; sci-tech innovation service parks witness a surge of intelligent innovation; visitors pack into the trendy commercial districts; and cultural and sports events ignite the city's passion… Strolling through Changchun, one can find everywhere the hustle and bustle of urban life and renewed vitality brought by the thriving service sector.

"Xinmin Summer Fest," on July 25 and 26, fully leveraged the advantages of Xinmin Street, the first "Renowned Chinese Cultural-Historic Street" in Jilin Province. To further amplify the street's exemplary and leading role, the event created new scenarios, business models and experiences for consumption, featuring activities such as magic shows, vintage car parades, and outdoor movie screenings. It developed Xinmin Street into a one-stop summer-night tourism destination offering sightseeing, entertainment, shopping, and immersive experiences.

At the "Winter Universiade Live" 2026 Changchun Cultural Tourism Street Music Festival, Lilith, a Ukrainian internet influencer and singer, interacted warmly with visitors in Chinese and shared her unique impressions of Changchun's romantic ice and snow in winter, vibrancy in summer, and warm-hearted, friendly residents. She looked forward to singing and dancing with visitors at this event and immersing herself in the city's unique charm.

The bustling scenes on Xinmin Street represent a vivid microcosm of the vigorous development of Changchun's service sector. Following its strategic plan for service sector capacity expansion and quality improvement, Changchun has advanced the integration between industries and services as well as the coordination of culture, commerce, and tourism. By creating diverse scenarios including historical blocks, sci-tech innovation services, and trendy commercial districts, the city has attracted visitors for its growth momentum. Its tertiary industry has taken the lead in driving sustained improvement in economic quality, strengthening the city's economy continuously as a leading industry.

In the first half of this year, Changchun's tertiary industry grew by 5.1% year-on-year, with remarkable progress in cultivating business entities. The demonstration system for the integration of advanced manufacturing and the modern service sector has continued to improve, with 3 provincial-level pilot areas and 10 pilot enterprises established for the integration of modern services with advanced manufacturing and modern agriculture. 49 provincial-level modern service industry clusters, including The Hill Leisure & Tourism Service Cluster, Changchun Lotus Island Film & Television Leisure Culture Park and Yunlang Tourism & Leisure Block, have demonstrated strong capabilities in clustering industries and driving development. With a cumulative revenue of nearly RMB 10 billion and more than 100,000 jobs created, these clusters have effectively stimulated the recovery of the consumer market and promoted stable employment for Changchun's residents.

The consumer market continues to expand. In the first half of the year, Changchun ranked second among China's four major northeast cities in terms of growth rate of total sales of consumer goods. Sales of upgraded consumer goods remained strong. Retail sales of wearable smart devices, and computers and their accessory products among retail enterprises (units) above the designated size increased by 2.3 times and 44.8%, respectively.

Culture-tourism integration boosts vitality and efficiency. Focusing on the brand system "Changchun: Beautiful All Year Round," the city has upgraded historical and cultural blocks such as Xinmin Street and Chunjingxi Block. Leveraging the attraction of major sporting events such as the Changchun Marathon and Northeast China Football League, the city has effectively driven the recovery of visitor flows in accommodation and catering sectors. Catering revenue of enterprises (units) above the designated size in Changchun increased by 15.4% during the first six months, up 17 percentage points year-on-year.

Rural markets expand at a faster pace. Commercial facilities in county-level areas have been steadily improved, and the initiative to promote trade-in products in rural areas has been further deepened. In the first half of 2026, retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas among retail enterprises (units) above the designated size increased by 15.2%, reflecting the continued vitality of county-level consumer markets.

The composition of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries has been optimized from 3.0 : 33.4 : 63.6 in the same period of last year to 3.1 : 30.7 : 66.2. The share of the service sector in the economy has steadily increased, and the sector's role as a new driver of economic growth continues to strengthen.

Since the beginning of this year, Changchun has thoroughly implemented the guiding principles of the National Conference on the Service Sector. With the expansion and improvement of the service sector as the main focus, the city has coordinated efforts to upgrade its producer services, while expanding the scale and improving the efficiency of consumer services. The city has been promoting producer services, including modern logistics, sci-tech research and development, and industrial design, toward greater specialization and higher ends of value chains. At the same time, it has accelerated the high-quality, diversified, and accessible development of consumer services such as commerce, culture and tourism, healthcare and elderly care, and household services. In doing so, it has seen sustained achievements in the service sector.

Source: Excerpt from Changchun Daily Convergence Media  Editor: Liu Jiadi