China's economic restructuring made landmark progress in 2015 as the servicesector created more than half of GDP for the first time ever, official data showed Tuesday.
The service sector contributed 50.5 percent to the country's GDP in 2015, up from 48.1 percentin 2014, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The percentage, which has continued to grow over the last two decades,exceeded 50 percent forthe first time, while factories' contribution to GDP was 40.5 percent, as the government tried toshift from investment-powered growth to cleaner and more sustainable expansion.
The value added in the service sector increased 8.3 percent year on year to 34.2 trillion yuan($5.3 trillion), while growth was 3.9 percent for the primary sector and 6 percent for thesecondary.
End-user consumption accounted for 66.4 percent of China's full-year GDP of 67.7 trillion yuan,which expanded 6.9 percent in 2015.
"China's economic structure continued to improve last year," said NBS director Wang Baoan ata news conference.
"Rising contributions from the service sector to GDP are a natural consequence of a country'seconomic development after entering the late stage of industrialization," said Wang, who alsostressed government efforts during the process.
Chinese leaders hope the service sector will replace polluting and energy-intensive industries tobecome a new economic engine, and they have made repeated pledges to give the sector a legup.
In a government work report last March, Premier Li Keqiang said China will accelerate thedevelopment of the service sector, which, with its growth potential, could create a huge number ofjobs.
Support to service sectors through fiscal, taxation, land and price policies must be implementedto stimulate the development of tourism, health care, elder care and design, said Li.
As part of the government efforts, China opened up its service sector wider to overseas investorslast year by relaxing a number of investment restrictions.
President Xi Jinping reiterated the importance of the service sector at a symposium attended byministers and provincial officials on Monday.