By using popular method measuring service export sophistication, this paper calculates service export sophistication of 35 countries including China. Based on which, this paper examines the relationship between service export sophistication and economic development quality by utilizing cross countries panel data covering the period from 2000 to 2013. The result shows that the two variables have a significant positive relationship, namely, the higher the service export sophistication is, the more important it will be in promoting economic development quality. Besides, the result also shows that human capital, innovation capability, trade open ness and FDI all have a positive impact on economic development quality. Under the background that China’s economic development pattern needs transformation urgently, the above conclusion has important policy implications.