China sees less service trade deficit

BEIJING - China recorded a smaller deficit in service trade in October, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed Wednesday.

The country's service trade deficit reached 105.6 billion yuan ($17.25 billion) in October, compared with 133.4 billion yuan in September, according to the SAFE.

Income from service trade stood at 75.9 billion yuan last month, while expenditure in service trade reached 181.5 billion yuan, the SAFE said.

In the first ten months, the aggregate service trade deficit totaled 824 billion yuan, with 1.05 trillion yuan in revenues and 1.87 trillion yuan in spending.

The SAFE started to issue monthly data on services trade in January 2014 to improve the transparency of balance of payments statistics.

Distinct from merchandise trade, service trade refers to the sale and delivery of intangible products such as transport, tourism, telecommunication, construction, advertising, computing and accountancy.