As the important components of the service industry, catering, accommodation, housekeeping, bathing, washing and dyeing, hairdressing and beauty, portrait photography, household appliance repair and other living service industries are bound up with people’s livelihood. The Ministry of Commerce, serving as a department in charge of living service industries, has always made efforts for the purpose of satisfying the people’s demands, through striving to construct the convenience service system to better and more widely serve the people’s livelihood, as well as promoting a sustainable and healthy development of national economy. Since this year, the Ministry of Commerce has carried out a good deal of work related to the system construction, behavior regulation, quality improvement and transformation promotion, etc., making the people enjoy high-quality services in a convenient, safe and satisfactory manner.

The first is to improve the system of regulations and standards, as well as regulate service behaviors. The Measures for the Administration of the Household Appliance Repair Service Industry and Interim Measures for the Administration of the Family Services Sector issued and the Measures for the Administration of the Catering Industry to be issued have specified the processes and quality of services, mainly regulated business operating behaviors of living service industries, safeguarded the legitimate rights and interests of both consumers and businesses and promoted an industrialized, brand-based and standardized development of living service industries. Moreover, more than 80 industrial standards have been developed to specify the establishment of business entities, service processes, service skills and quality, etc. for the catering, accommodation and other living service industries, oversee the businesses to serve the people with high-quality services as required and ensure that the people consume safely. Some of these industrial standards, like the Rules for Family Education Services and Rules for Family Care Services have been prepared based on the orientation of service behavior regulation to, by starting with weak links of the industries and making requests mainly for the market access, business behavior regulation, service process regulation, practitioner behavior regulation, market assessment and supervision, etc., gradually establish and improve the standard system and promote the self-regulation of businesses and industries.

The second is to improve the housekeeping service system and promote the home-based care services. Given that housekeeping service businesses are an important force to improve the home-based care service system, the Ministry of Commerce has, in recent years, actively advanced the construction of the housekeeping service system through establishing housekeeping service network centers in 164 central cities at prefecture level or above, fostering and supporting the development of more than 700 large- and medium-sized enterprises, and training over 1 million service personnel, and thus forming some housekeeping service network centers and a large number of well-known housekeeping businesses and service personnel brands that are deeply affected by the people. Currently, in supported cities, housekeeping service industries involved are experiencing a smooth and orderly development, with the quality of practitioners improved and housekeeping service system initially formed, assuming an important task of home-based care services. Furthermore, some housekeeping service businesses have energetically expanded their business scope, such as providing on-site assistance of meal, bath, clean, emergency, health care and other services according to the particular requirements of home-bound elders and developing health service products and projects required by these elders, which have laid a solid foundation to improve the home-based care service system.

The third is to implement the breakfast project to make the ordinary people feel confident in food safety. To solve the problem that breakfast supplied in partial large- and medium-sized cities is not convenient, safe and affordable, explore the effective way of large-scale, standardized and chain development of such popular catering services as the breakfast supply, and improve the level of popular catering services, since 2008, the Ministry of Commerce has implemented the “Breakfast Demonstration Project”, and pilot work was implemented in Beijing, Tianjin and Yan'an in 2012. So far, 105 staple food processing and distribution centers have been newly constructed and reconstructed in more than 50 cities all over the country, and nearly 20,000 supporting standardized breakfast outlets have been established. As a result, nearly 10 million people can have breakfast at ease, and about 100,000 job opportunities were created. With such obvious effects as promoting the initial shaping of the breakfast supply service system in pilot cities and enabling the ordinary people to have breakfast in an easy, affordable, and confident manner; effectively lifting the modernization and chain level of the pilot enterprises and achieving the standardized, industrialized and industrial production of breakfast; significantly increasing the society harmony, the Project is highly praised as a “Livelihood Project” and “Benevolent Rule Project”.

The fourth is to strictly enforce catering economy and guide the transformation and development of catering enterprises. To implement the central spirit, the Ministry of Commerce implemented the action of “strictly enforce hard working, thriftiness and economy, and combat extravagance and waste”, and guided the catering industry to change its development pattern and orderly promoted strict enforcement of thriftiness and economy. Relevant industry associations and catering enterprises responded positively. Industry associations proposed and formulated the common consensus of the catering industry of “strictly enforce hard working, thriftiness and economy, and combat extravagance and waste”. Catering enterprises established the prompt system of frugal consumption to guide consumers to consume in a frugal manner. Remarkable results have been achieved, and the luxurious consumption momentum has been contained. Revenue of dining of upscale restaurants dropped by more than 20% on a year-on-year basis, consumption of public affairs fell obviously, and especially, sales amount of partial upscale restaurants positioned as public affairs and business banquet has seen a steep decline. In the meantime, catering enterprises are actively guided to go back to the basics, improve the quality and increase efficiency, reduce cost, build brand and promote transformation by means of research and development of popular products, reposition of client base, extension of industrial chain, innovation of marketing mode, active utilization of policies, etc., which have achieved good results so far. Some high-end catering enterprises have gone back to cater for the public, and have been recognized by consumers, and thus realizing sustainable development during transformation.

Translated by Hu Xiaoying

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