China to offer fiscal support for service biz

BEIJING -- The Chinese government will provide subsidies and rewards for several types of business projects in the service sector, according to finance and commerce authorities.

Funds will be allocated from the central coffers to benefit housekeeping, e-commerce, resource recycling, second-hand car trade and other businesses that can either make people's life more convenient, facilitate distribution of goods or promote a green economy, said a document jointly released by the MOF and the Ministry of Commerce.

Subsidies and rewards to each of those business projects should not exceed 30 percent of its total investment, the document said.

Those projects can also receive subsidies on their bank loan interest payments at a rate no higher than the benchmark one-year lending rate for no longer than three years, it said.

China aims to boost the development of the service sector in a bid to make its economy driven more by domestic consumption than by industrial investment and exports.

The proportion of the value-added output of the service sector in the country's gross domestic output will be increased by 4 percentage points by 2015 from 2010, according to government plans.