MOFCOM:China's service trade maintains robust growth
08-Jul-2018
China'sservice trade maintained robust growth in the first five months of this year asthe government has channeled more energy into opening the service sector.
The Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said Thursday that the country's service trade rose 12 percent year-on-year to stand at 2.1 trillion yuan (nearly 320 billion US dollars) in the January-May period.
Service exports increased 13.3 percent to 691.53 billion yuan, while imports gained11.4 percent to 1.41 trillion yuan, resulting in a deficit of nearly 720billion yuan.
Tradein services refers to the sale and delivery of intangible products such as transportation, tourism, telecommunications, construction, advertising,computing and accounting.
The MOFCOM said the growth rates hit new highs this year and outpaced the expansionof the goods trade during the same time. China's service trade accounted for15.3 percent of the total foreign trade in the first five months, up 0.7percentage point from a year ago.
China has taken steps to improve the development of trade in services, including gradually opening up the finance, education, culture and medical treatmentsectors.
Seventeenregions, including Beijing, started to develop a pilot program which will last from July 1 this year to June 30, 2020 and promote innovative development inservice trade. The program was first rolled out by the State Council in 2016.
A series of new opening-up measures were piloted in the regions, covering telecommunications, tourism, engineering consulting, finance and legal services.
