The booth of Bank of Guangzhou bustles with activity at an international financial expo in the city. CHINA DAILY

Guangzhou is striving to make itself stand out in the development of the modern service industry and build itself into an international center for consumption.

The city's financial industry, a cornerstone of modern services, has made a substantive progress with the establishment of the south center of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the service bases of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the National Equities Exchange and Quotations, also known as the new third board.

Preparation work on the Guangzhou Futures Exchange is underway and the institution is expected to be unveiled in the near future.

Official statistics said that in the first half of the year, the deposit and loan balance of domestic and foreign currencies of financial institutions in Guangzhou exceeded 11.5 trillion yuan ($1.76 trillion).

The city led the establishment of the green finance alliance of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and issued green bonds valued at 59 billion yuan, ranking first among all national pilot zones on green finance reform and innovation in terms of total volume and growth rate.

To date, there are a total of 194 listed companies in Guangzhou. The proportion of GDP generated from the financial industry increased from 9.3 percent in 2017 to 10.4 percent this year.

According to the Global Financial Centres Index, Guangzhou's ranking in the world rose from 37th in 2017 to 21st.

The city has also integrated the service industry with advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data and the internet of things.

Guangzhou's software and information service industry has an added value of more than 100 billion yuan, according to the government. In 2019, the growth rate of the business income in the sector ranked first among 15 sub-provincial cities in China.

From January to August this year, it increased by 13.7 percent against the trend.

Guangzhou is promoting professional services covering law, accounting, auditing, arbitration, consulting, design, inspection and testing, and accelerating the construction of national-level platforms for inspection and testing services as well as industrial parks for advertising.

The city has implemented 10 major actions to accelerate international consumption and boost the nighttime economy, livestreaming and online transactions to expand domestic demand. Guangzhou is also speeding up the construction of a modern logistics system.

Cross-border e-commerce imports in Guangzhou have ranked first in the country for five consecutive years, the government said.

In 2019, the added value of Guangzhou's service industry increased by 7.5 percent, and the revenue of the software and information technology, intellectual property, and human resources increased by 14.9 percent, 25.2 percent and 32.9 percent respectively.

The development of new businesses such as e-commerce and new retail has been accelerated, and total retail sales of consumer goods reached 997.56 billion yuan in 2019, an increase of 7.8 percent year-on-year.

Since 2019, the added value of Guangzhou's modern service industry has increased by 9.3 percent, and the ranking of Guangzhou's top 100 global innovation clusters has risen from 32nd in the previous year to 21st.

In terms of investment promotion services, in the past two years, Guangzhou has added 108 headquarters companies and 39 listed companies.

Guangzhou is home to a total of 309 Fortune Global 500 companies; the city saw 149 investment projects funded by Fortune Global 500 companies in the past two years.

The city will focus more on promoting high-quality development, the government said.

This year, the added value of the modern service industry will account for about 70 percent of the city's tertiary industry.

The new-generation information technologies such as mobile internet, cloud computing, and big data are catalyzing the city to become a prominent player of modern services, local officials said.