ECONOMY ListPage

By Yin Lei

China saw its trade in services grow by 8.5 percent year-on-year to a record high of RMB 2.53 trillion at the mid-year mark, an update of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) showed on Tuesday.

With this growth, which was 0.6 percentage point higher than that of goods, services accounted for 15.2 percent of China's foreign trade in the six-month period, up by 0.1 percentage point year-on-year.

From January to June, China's services exports expanded by 13.6 percent to RMB 841.57 billion and imports by 6.1 percent to RMB 1.69 trillion. The 7.5 percentage-point lead in exports contributed to a smaller service trade deficit of RMB 848.18 billion, which was RMB 2.66 billion less than the same period last year and represented the first semi-annual decrease since 2010.

The fast expansion of China's service trade was underpinned by the robust development of its service industry and the favorable policies such as the pilot service trade programs, said Li Yuan, an official of the MOFCOM's Department of Trade in Services and Commercial Services, explaining the slightly narrowed deficit.

China's service purchasing managers' index (PMI) in July stood at 53 percent, indicating an expansion of this industry, as shown by data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last week.

In addition to higher volumes, the services trade also saw an improved structure during the first half of 2018.

New services boosted their weight in China's total service trade by three percentage points, generating RMB 846.67 billion in imports and exports, up by 19 percent year-on-year. In contrast, the three traditional pillars of tourism, transport and construction together saw a decrease of 2.5 percent in their share.

The new services exports, in particular, grew by 23.6 percent to RMB 440.2 billion, making up 52.3 percent of China's trade in services as a whole.