Dalian’s Services-Opening Pilot Goes Operational: Medical Access Guides and the Implementation Plan

  • In August 2026 Dalian stepped up its services-opening pilot: the municipal commerce bureau opened a 7-day public comment on the Dalian Implementation Plan for the Services Industry Expansion and Opening Comprehensive Pilot (draft), while the municipal health commission issued three compliance guides for foreign doctors opening clinics, foreign-invested non-profit medical institutions and short-term practice by overseas physicians.
    2026 年 8 月,大连加码服务业扩大开放试点:市商务局对《大连市服务业扩大开放综合试点实施方案(草案)》公开征求意见(7 天);市卫生健康委发布三项合规办事指引,覆盖外籍及港澳台医生开设诊所、中外合资合作非营利性医疗机构、境外医师短期执业。
  • Dalian is one of nine cities — together with Ningbo, Xiamen, Qingdao, Shenzhen, Hefei, Fuzhou, Xi’an and Suzhou — added to the national services-opening pilot in 2025, carrying 159 pilot tasks assigned by the Ministry of Commerce in January 2026.
    大连是 2025 年新增的 9 个服务业扩大开放综合试点城市之一(另有宁波、厦门、青岛、深圳、合肥、福州、西安、苏州),承接商务部 2026 年 1 月赋予的 159 项试点任务。
  • The medical guides convert national pilot tasks into standardised filing procedures: clear legal bases, applicant conditions, document checklists and process steps for overseas medical professionals and institutions to practise or establish entities in Dalian.
    医疗三项指引把国家试点任务转化为标准化审批办事规范:明确境外医疗人才、机构来连执业办医的办理依据、申请条件、申报材料与办理流程。
  • The pilot tasks cover telecom services, healthcare, business, culture and tourism and finance, with each city encouraged to design distinctive tasks based on local strengths — Dalian’s health-sector focus reflects its industrial base.
    试点任务覆盖电信服务、医疗康养、商贸文旅、金融等重点领域,鼓励各城市结合自身优势设计个性化任务——大连聚焦医疗审批改革与其产业基础契合。
  • For foreign healthcare providers, the practical entry point is clear: use the three Dalian guides to prepare clinic-licensing or short-term-practice filings, and watch the city’s implementation plan for wider services-opening commitments.
    对外资医疗机构与境外医师,实操入口明确:按大连三项指引准备诊所设置或短期执业申报,并关注该市实施方案中的更广开放承诺。

Dalian’s Services-Opening Pilot Goes Operational: Medical Access Guides and the Implementation Plan | 大连服务业扩大开放试点落地:医疗开放指引与实施方案

From national pilot to city-level rules

Dalian was one of nine cities added to the national services industry expansion and opening comprehensive pilot in 2025 — together with Ningbo, Xiamen, Qingdao, Shenzhen, Hefei, Fuzhou, Xi’an and Suzhou — bringing the pilot network to 20 cities. In January 2026 the Ministry of Commerce issued the pilot tasks for these nine cities: 159 tasks spanning telecom services, medical and healthcare, business, culture and tourism, and finance, with a “common plus distinctive” structure that lets each city combine national commitments with locally tailored measures. In August 2026 Dalian translated this national framework into local, operational rules. On 20 August the municipal commerce bureau published the Dalian Implementation Plan for the Services Industry Expansion and Opening Comprehensive Pilot (draft) for a seven-day public comment period. Days earlier, the municipal health commission released three compliance guides covering the healthcare tasks.

The three medical compliance guides

The three guides issued by the Dalian health commission are: (1) the Compliance Guide for Foreign and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Doctors Opening Clinics in Dalian; (2) the Compliance Guide for Applying to Establish Sino-foreign Jointly Invested or Co-operated Non-Profit Medical Institutions in Dalian; and (3) the Compliance Guide for Overseas Physicians Conducting Short-Term Practice in Accordance with Regulations in Dalian. Each guide standardises the approval chain end to end: the legal basis, applicant conditions, required documents and the filing process, converting national pilot tasks into the day-to-day norms that local regulators will apply. The three areas covered — foreign doctors’ clinics, short-term practice by overseas physicians and non-profit joint medical institutions — correspond exactly to the tasks the national pilot assigns to the healthcare sector.

What the draft implementation plan signals

The draft implementation plan, open for comment until 26 August, sets out how Dalian will implement the 159 tasks more broadly. It is grounded in the MOFCOM notice on the nine-city pilot tasks (Shang Zi Han [2026] No. 5) and, once finalised, will be the reference document for foreign investors assessing Dalian’s services sector. Combined with the medical guides, it signals that Dalian intends to be a practical testbed: national policy is being converted into city-level processes that businesses can follow, rather than left as abstract commitments.

Why it matters for foreign healthcare and services investors

For foreign healthcare providers, the package matters for three reasons. First, entry clarity: the three guides specify exactly what an overseas physician needs to open a clinic or practise short-term in Dalian — reducing the uncertainty that historically surrounded medical licensing for foreign professionals. Second, breadth: the implementation plan, once final, will clarify Dalian’s approach to telecom, business, culture and tourism and finance tasks, helping investors see the full opening landscape rather than a single sector. Third, precedent value: Dalian is among the first of the nine 2025-vintage pilot cities to convert its tasks into published compliance guides, so the format is likely to be imitated by other cities — making the Dalian documents useful templates for understanding how services opening is being operationalised across China.

Practical steps

Foreign investors and medical professionals should: (1) review the three health-commission guides against their specific plans — clinic establishment, short-term practice or a non-profit joint institution — and assemble the document package each guide lists; (2) engage the Dalian health commission early on applicant qualifications, since foreign-doctor clinic rules require careful checking of professional credentials and prior practice records; (3) track the finalised version of the implementation plan through the Dalian commerce bureau for wider services commitments; and (4) for investors comparing Chinese cities, treat Dalian’s published guides as one example of how the nine-city pilot tasks are being implemented, and benchmark against the progress of peer cities such as Fuzhou, Shenzhen and Xi’an.

The wider context: services opening as a national agenda

Dalian’s package sits inside a broader national push that foreign investors should read as a trend, not a one-off. The “15th Five-Year Plan” outline treats services as the main front of opening: expanding market access in telecom, internet, education, culture and healthcare, and steadily running the value-added telecom, biotech and wholly foreign-owned hospital pilots. Two negative lists are the operational instruments — the foreign-investment negative list and the cross-border services trade negative list — and pilot FTZs and services-opening pilot cities are the testbeds. For a foreign services provider, the practical implication is that city-level documents like Dalian’s implementation plan and compliance guides are where national commitments become enforceable processes; monitoring them is the difference between reading about opening and actually entering a market. The same mechanics — a national task, a local implementation plan, sector-specific compliance guides — are being replicated across the nine new pilot cities, so a company that understands Dalian’s format can apply the same analytical lens to Fuzhou, Shenzhen, Qingdao and the rest.

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大连服务业扩大开放试点落地:医疗开放指引与实施方案

从国家试点到市级规则

大连是 2025 年新增的 9 个服务业扩大开放综合试点城市之一(另有宁波、厦门、青岛、深圳、合肥、福州、西安、苏州),试点网络由此扩围至 20 城。2026 年 1 月,商务部印发 9 城市服务业扩大开放综合试点任务:159 项任务覆盖电信服务、医疗康养、商贸文旅、金融等领域,采用”共性+个性”结构,鼓励各城市把国家承诺与本地特色结合。2026 年 8 月,大连将国家框架转化为本地操作性规则。8 月 20 日,市商务局发布《大连市服务业扩大开放综合试点实施方案(草案)》并公开征求意见(7 天);此前数日,市卫生健康委发布覆盖医疗领域试点任务的三项合规办事指引。

三项医疗合规指引

大连市卫健委发布的三项指引为:(1)《大连市外籍及港澳台医生开设诊所合规办事指引》;(2)《大连市申办中外合资、合作非营利性医疗机构合规办事指引》;(3)《大连市境外医师按规定从事短期执业活动合规办事指引》。每项指引对审批链条做全流程标准化:办理依据、申请条件、申报材料、办理流程,把国家试点任务转化为地方监管日常适用的规范。三个覆盖领域——外籍医生诊所、境外医师短期执业、中外合资非营利性医疗机构——与全国试点赋予医疗行业的任务一一对应。

实施方案草案的信号

实施方案草案(征求意见截止 8 月 26 日)明确大连将如何更广地落实 159 项任务。文件依据商务部 9 城市试点任务通知(商资函〔2026〕5 号)制定,定稿后将成为外资投资者评估大连服务业的参考文件。与医疗指引结合,方案传递的信号是:大连要做实操试验田——国家政策被转化为企业可遵循的城市级流程,而非停留在抽象承诺。

对外资医疗与服务投资者的意义

对外资医疗机构,这一揽子安排有三重意义。第一,准入清晰:三项指引精确说明境外医师在大连开设诊所或短期执业需要什么,降低了外籍医疗执业许可长期以来的不确定性。第二,广度:实施方案定稿后将明确大连对电信、商贸、文旅、金融任务的态度,投资者可见全貌而非单一行业。第三,先例价值:大连是 2025 年批次 9 城市中率先把试点任务转化为公开合规指引的城市之一,格式很可能被其他城市效仿——大连文件因此成为理解全国服务业开放如何落地化的有用模板。

操作建议

外资投资者与境外医疗专业人士应:(1)对照三项指引核对自己的具体计划——开设诊所、短期执业或非营利性合资机构——并按指引清单准备材料包;(2)尽早与大连市卫健委沟通申请人资质,外籍医生诊所规则对执业资格与既往执业记录核对要求细致;(3)通过市商务局跟踪实施方案定稿版,获取更广服务承诺;(4)比较不同中国城市时,把大连的公开指引视为 9 城市试点任务落地的一个样本,并与福州、深圳、西安等同批城市进展对标。

更大背景:服务业开放作为国家议程

大连的一揽子安排处在一个更广的国家推进之中,外国投资者应视之为趋势而非一次性事件。”十五五”规划纲要视服务业为开放主战场:推动电信、互联网、教育、文化、医疗等领域有序扩大开放,稳妥实施增值电信、生物技术、外商独资医院等开放试点。两张负面清单是操作工具——外商投资准入负面清单与跨境服务贸易负面清单——自贸试验区与服务业扩大开放试点城市是试验田。对外资服务商,实际含义是:像大连实施方案与合规指引这样的城市级文件,正是国家承诺转化为可执行流程之处;跟踪它们是”读到开放”与”真正进入市场”的区别。同一机制——国家任务、地方实施方案、分行业合规指引——正在 9 个新增试点城市复制,理解了大连格式的企业可以把同样的分析框架套用于福州、深圳、青岛等城市。

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