In the general atmosphere of an economic downturn, the city of Zhangjiagang in Jiangsu province has made efforts to accelerate the development of its service sector, to promote the city's industrial and economic growth.

Last year was the first time that Zhangjiagang's service sector revenue hit 100 billion yuan ($15 billion), up 10.6 percent on the previous year, and in turn increase its contribution to GDP to 45.2 percent.

The tax revenue and public finance budget revenue of the service sector both exceeds 40 percent. In 2015, more than 36.5 billion yuan was spent on service sector investment, up six percent from last year.

Despite the slight spring chill, the agricultural demonstration park in the city's Jinshazhou scenic spot has continued vigorous construction. As this year's key project, the park has attracted 680 million yuan in investment and built up three leisure tourism countryside areas. The construction work is expected to finish by the end of 2016 making the park a national agricultural eco-tourism demonstration area.

The Software (Animation) Industrial Park in Zhangjiagang city is awarded the model industrial park in Suzhou. [Photo/zjgonline.com.cn]

The park is a typical example reflecting the city's rapid industrial development speed. In recent years, Zhangjiagang has added nine modern service sector clusters, among which the Software (Animation) Industrial Park was awarded as the model industrial park in Suzhou.

The city's modern logistics and commodity market construction has also made steady progress. The Zhangjiagang Port's cargo handling capacity reached 280 million tons, up 3.7 percent, in which the number for foreign trade goods was 59 million, a 7.9 percent rise. The total commodity market turnover in 2015 passed 260 billion yuan, to which the iron and steel market as well as the chemical trading center still contributed a dominating percentage.

For 2016, the city will keep stressing the development of its product service sector mainly promoting modern logistics, specialized marketing, financial and commercial services, expecting a 10 percent increase in its value-added contribution to the whole service sector, reaching 58 percent.

The Yonglian Town in Zhangjiagang city integrates modern agricultural and local specialty resources, making its agricultural garden a popular rural tourist resort. [Photo/zjgonline.com.cn]

At the same time, the consumption service sector is taking firm steps forward. The city's Yonglian Town has combined its modern agriculture and local specialties to upgrade from a sightseeing scenic spot to a rural tourist resort. Its agricultural garden saw 15,000 visitors, yielding 450,000 yuan in revenue during Spring Festival alone.

The Zhangjiagang city regards the rural environment improvement work as a chance to contribute to the development of leisure tourism. So far, the city has built seven national A-level scenic spots and seven provincial star rural tourism areas. In 2015, the land saw nearly nine million domestic and foreign visitors, earning 13.3 billion yuan in tourism revenue, up seven and eight percent respectively from 2014.

The Mambat Shopping Plaza, boasting a four billion yuan investment, is a business complex located in downtown Zhangjiagang, featuring office, entertainment, shopping and catering. [Photo/zjgonline.com.cn]

The booming tourism industry flows into business in general. The Mambat Shopping Plaza, with four billion yuan in investment, will feature offices, entertainment venues, shopping and restaurants. Located in downtown Zhangjiagang, the plaza, along with another four business complexes to its north, south, east and west, makes up the city's business circle system. Statistics show the city's retail sales totaled 49 billion yuan last year.

E-commerce has raised a lot of concerns in this sector as well. The "Internet + Community" project undertaken last year helped local residents by offering discounted daily services, averaging 5,000 transactions and 65,000 yuan in money spent every day. The platform will add more services including medical care, tourism and elderly care in the future covering more than 100 communities in the city. Residents can also download its official mobile phone app.

In 2016, the city of Zhangjiagang is expecting a 10 percent increase in its service sector and raising its value-added contribution to 46 percent of GDP.