Recently,the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government successively releasedthe notice on the Implementation Opinions on Promoting Capacity Expansion and Quality Improvement of the Service Industry and the Shanghai Service Industry Development “15th Five-Year” Plan, which mentions elderly care and the silver economy in multiple places.

The Implementation Opinions propose thatby 2030,the high-quality development of the service industry has achieved significant results, with the added value of the service industry reachingabout 6 trillion yuan, and the total import and export of servicesexceeding 300 billion US dollars.The Planspecifies that by2030, the level of digitalization, standardization, integration, and internationalization of the service industry will continue to improve, basically forming a new high-quality and efficient service system led by high-level urban core service functions, with high-end productive services as the main body and high-quality life services as the support, making Shanghai’s service industry a more resilient base for economic growth and a more dynamic hub for global service resource allocation.The average annual growth rate of the added value of the service industry will reach5.5%or above, and the labor productivity of the service industry will exceed45450,000 yuan/person.

The following are excerpts from the document related to elderly care and the silver economy:

I. Notice of the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government on Printing and Distributing the Shanghai Service Industry Development “15th Five-Year” Plan

Notice of the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government on Printing and Distributing the Shanghai Service Industry Development “15th Five-Year” Plan

Hufu Banfa [2026] No. 7

To the district people’s governments, and all municipal commissions, offices, and bureaus:

The Shanghai Service Industry Development “15th Five-Year” Plan has been approved by the municipal government and is hereby issued to you. Please implement it carefully.

General Office of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government

  May 25, 2026

Shanghai Service Industry Development “15th Five-Year” Plan

In order to promote the capacity expansion, quality improvement, and high-quality and efficient development of the city’s service industry, and to better play the role of the service industry in economicdevelopment of the main engine role, and in accordance with the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of Shanghai, this plan is formulated.

II. Key Tasks

(1) Focus on deepening the construction of the “five centers” and continuously improve the city’s core service functions

1. Strive to enrich high-quality supply of financial services

Improve the quality and efficiency of financial services for the real economy, accelerate the construction of a full-cycle, diversified, and relay-style science and technology financial service system; promote the multi-field application of green finance standards and related sustainable finance standards; strengthen policy-based financguarantee and inclusive insurance system support, and actively develop inclusive finance;Enrich elderly care financial products, and improve the age-friendly level of financial services;Steadily develop digital renminbi, and improve the level of financial technology innovation servicelevel.

(3) Promote the renewal and advancement of life services, and stimulate new vitality in service consumption

3. Accelerate the qualitative leap in elderly care and childcare

Promote high-quality development of the silver economy, encourage social forces to invest in professional elderly care institutions, promote community-based embedded elderly care, home-based elderly care and other elderly care servicesdiversified development of service forms, promote the integration of medical and elderly care, strengthen the supply of skilled personnel for elderly care services, promote smart elderly care facilities andconstruction of technology application scenarios, support the development of areas such as assisted bathing, accompany medical visits, age-friendly renovation, and rental of rehabilitation aids, optimize the long-term care insurance mechanism, support standardized innovation of products such as personal pensions, third-pillar commercial pension insurance, and elderly care financial management. Build a diversified, high-qualitychildcare service system, promote the coordinated development of preschool education and childcare services, explore synergy between childcare and early education, infant and toddler health management services, support the development of new childcare scenarios such as community childcare, corporate childcare, and building childcare, strengthen childcare personnel training, and improve the evaluation and monitoring system and regular supervision system for childcare institutions.

(4) Forward-looking layout of emerging service tracks, deeply tap new potential for future development

1. Deepen the development of new services in intelligent technology

AI software technology and services, vigorously develop generative artificial intelligence technology, focus on face and image recognition, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) technology, intelligent transportation, smart logistics, online education, energy and other fields, to build an AI software technology and service industry cluster. “AI+” R&D, focus on biomedicine, new materials, new energy and other fields to strengthen technological breakthroughs, data management and institutional guarantees.Embodied intelligence services support the development of complete machine products for scenarios such as home, elderly care, cultural tourism, and commerce, accelerating the leap of robots from specific task execution to general intelligence and scenario-specific refined service functions.Smart computing cloud services strengthen the coordinated layout of computing, networking, and storage, promote the integration and innovation of AI technology and cloud computing, and promote Model as a Service (MaaS). Cloud platform services create a number of ‘AI+’ service benchmark scenarios in vertical fields such as finance, healthcare, and cultural tourism. AI agents support the development and application of multimodal agents, promoting large-scale application of tools such as intelligent customer service, intelligent operations, and intelligent decision-making. Intelligent driving promotes orderly application in multiple scenarios such as shared mobility and logistics transportation.Smart home: Develop smart home facilities with comprehensive perception and intelligent control, as well as customized user-end services, to meet the needs of scenario-based services such as elderly care, childcare, office, and entertainment.

2. Accelerate innovation in new life and health services

Targeted drugs: Accelerate the research and development of targeted drugs for complex and rare diseases, improving the level of precision treatment services. Digital medicine: Promote breakthroughs in AI-assisted diagnostic technology, develop intelligent systems covering scenarios such as imaging diagnosis, pathological analysis, chronic disease management, and clinical decision-making, and promote the application of digital therapy in suitable fields. Brain-computer interfaces: Focus on promoting technological R&D, clinical transformation, and service innovation of brain-computer interface technology in areas such as neurodegenerative diseases, motor disorder rehabilitation, and functional compensation for disabled individuals. Cell and gene therapy: Promote the establishment of standardized, large-scale, and regulated product preparation and quality control systems for cell and gene therapy, building an integrated service from cell storage, technology R&D to clinical treatment.Mental health services: For needs such as youth mental health guidance, elderly emotional companionship, workplace stress relief, and family relationship mediation, support the development of AI psychological assessment, intelligent counseling, virtual companionship, drama therapy, mindfulness meditation, and other mental health services.

II. Implementation Opinions of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government on Promoting the Expansion and Quality Improvement of the Service Industry

Implementation Opinions of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government on Promoting the Expansion and Quality Improvement of the Service Industry

Hu Fu Fa [2026] No. 1

III. Promote high-quality, diversified, and convenient development of life services

(8) Promote quality upgrading of domestic services and catering.

Focusing on the transformation and development of employee-based systems, promote the professionalization, standardization, and normalization of domestic services, and cultivate a number of benchmark brand enterprises.Focus on key areas such as home-based elderly care and maternal and infant care, improve the formulation and publication of service standards.Expand emerging fields such as organizing and storage, and household management, to create a ‘one-stop’ family service platform. Increase the introduction of global culinary brands, cultivate a number of international food characteristic areas, and innovatively hold the Shanghai Global Food Festival. Support the innovative development of new formats such as themed immersive and interactive workshop styles, and implement a number of pilot projects for integrated dining scenarios. (Responsible units: Municipal Commerce Commission, Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, Municipal Market Supervision Administration)

(9) Promote supply-demand matching for elderly care and childcare.

Promote quality improvement of elderly care institutions. Deepen community-embedded elderly care services, encourage home aging-friendly renovations, develop services such as in-home bathing assistance and medical accompaniment, and promote the standardized development of new formats such as ‘domestic service + elderly care’. Support the large-scale and branded development of the rehabilitation assistive device industry. Expand application scenarios for smart health elderly care products, and promote innovative applications of elderly care service robots and smart terminal devices.Deepen the integration of childcare and early childhood education, support communities, industrial parks, and office buildings in providing welfare childcare services, and explore the coordination of childcare with early education and infant health management services.Explore the co-construction and sharing model of ‘elderly care + childcare’ facilities, and encourage the development of new types of elderly care and childcare services such as travel recuperation, medical and health care.(Responsible units: Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, Municipal Commerce Commission, Municipal Economic and Information Technology Commission, Municipal Health Commission, Municipal Education Commission, Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism)

(10) Promote quality improvement and expansion of medical and health services.

Continue to promote the construction of world-class medical center cities, deepen pilot opening of wholly foreign-owned hospitals, and steadily advance international medical pilot projects. Support social forces in providing high-end medical services, diversify the development of consumer-driven health industries such as health checkups, medical rehabilitation, and medical aesthetics, and extend integrated health management services covering prevention, post-examination, and post-consultation.Promote the co-location or adjacent arrangement of medical and elderly care facilities, and develop elderly health services. Build the international brand of ‘Shanghai-style Traditional Chinese Medicine’, enrich the supply of TCM culture inbound tourism products and services, and explore the development of foreign-related high-end medical and health care services in the field of TCM.Accelerate the construction of medical AI command centers and Model as a Service (MaaS) platforms, focusing on areas such as assisted clinical diagnosis and treatment, and assisted primary care, accelerate the development of industry agents, and create a number of demonstration scenarios. (Responsible units: Municipal Health Commission, Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau)

(11) Improve the convenience of resident services.

Encourage the construction of community-embedded service facilities using existing buildings, and promote composite configuration of functions such as elderly care and childcare, community meals, domestic convenience, and sports fitness.Improve the quality of the 15-minute convenient living circle, and improve and optimize integrated community services such as elderly care, childcare, and domestic services. Encourage communities to deploy micro cold storage and forward warehouses, promote traditional retailand catering industries to expand instant retail business,Accelerate the cultivation of instant retail entities in subdivided fields such as medicine, elderly care, and health, and enrich the high-quality supply of instant retail goods and services.(Responsible units: Municipal Development and Reform Commission, Municipal Planning and Resources Bureau, Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Construction Management Commission, Municipal Commerce Commission)

V. Improve policy supply and enhance work synergy

(18) Deepen high-level reform and opening up.

Deepen service and integration into the construction of a unified national market, remove various hidden barriers, and encourage social capital to participate in bidding and government procurement in areas such as sports competitions and elderly care services.Expand the service industry market, promote central and state-owned enterprises to deepen collaborative cooperation with various business entities through incorporation, service outsourcing, introduction of strategic investors, etc., and attract more small and medium-sized enterprises into the industrial and supply chains. Deepen the pilot expansion of the service industry opening up, and deepen institutional opening of new formats such as bonded maintenance and offshore trade. Build a national service trade innovation development demonstration zone, optimize cross-border capital flow management, innovate the ‘negative list + operating guidelines’ management model for cross-border data, and implement the expansion of the data outbound negative list to the entire Shanghai region. Relying on national strategic areas such as Lingang New Area, Yangtze River Delta Ecological Green Integrated Development Demonstration Zone, Hongqiao International Open Hub, and Oriental Hub International Business Cooperation Zone, increase pilot efforts and reduce institutional transaction costs. (Responsible units: Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Municipal Development and Reform Commission, Municipal Market Supervision Administration, Municipal Commerce Commission, Municipal Financial Office, Municipal Cyberspace Administration, Municipal Data Bureau)

(21) Improve the standard system and statistical monitoring.

Accelerate the formulation and publication of standards in service consumption areas such as elderly care and domestic services, and improve service quality evaluation and credit evaluation.Encourage industry organizations and various enterprises to participate in the alignment of national and international standards in frontier fields such as brain-computer interfaces and medical robots. Promote international cooperation and mutual recognition of standards in areas such as digital economy and green and low-carbon. Improve the statistical system, establish and improve statistical classification standards for industrial services, silver economy, etc., and strengthen statistics on new business forms and models such as key service industry areas and service consumption. Explore the establishment of multi-dimensional comprehensive evaluation indicators for service industry development, and use big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies to strengthen dynamic monitoring and analysis of the service industry operation. (Responsible units: Municipal Market Supervision Administration, Municipal Statistics Bureau, Municipal Development and Reform Commission, Municipal Data Bureau, relevant departments and units)

Source: Shanghai Municipal People’s Government Disclaimer: This platform is committed to industry sharing and exchange. The article does not represent the platform’s views. Copyright belongs to the original author. If there are any errors in source attribution or infringement of legitimate rights, please contact us, and we will promptly correct or delete it. Thank you.