China's service trade deficit narrows in Jan-Aug

BEIJING -- China's trade structure has further improved as the country's service trade deficit continued to narrow in the first eight months of this year, data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) showed Thursday.

During the period, China reported a deficit of 515.62 billion yuan ($75.71 billion) in service trade, down 50.6 percent, or 527.52 billion yuan from a year ago, the ministry said.

The country's total service trade volume reached 2.99 trillion yuan in the January-August period, down 16.3 percent year on year, according to MOC data.

China's trade of knowledge-intensive services maintained strong resilience in the reporting period, expanding 8.5 percent to 1.32 trillion yuan, accounting for 44.1 percent of the total service trade.

Sectors such as telecommunications, computer and information services, and insurance services registered rapid increases in both exports and imports, according to the MOC.

Meanwhile, tourism services were significantly impacted by the pandemic and associated travel restrictions, which severely dampened tourism worldwide. In the first eight months, the volume of tourism service trade slumped 45.8 percent to 724.9 billion yuan.

Excluding the tourism sector, the country's Jan -Aug service trade volume was basically at the same level as the corresponding period last year, the ministry said.

In contrast to merchandise trade, services trade refers to the sale and delivery of intangible products such as transportation, tourism, telecommunications, construction, advertising, computing and accounting.