Trade in Services Maintains Strong Growth

China’s services trade continued to maintain a healthy growth momentum from January to October in 2021, a Ministry of Commerce spokeswoman said at a recent press conference. Imports and exports of services totaled RMB 4.2 trillion, up 12.7 percent year on year. Exports made up RMB 2.0 trillion, up 29 percent, and imports totaled RMB 2,200.6 billion, up 1.1 percent.

During the period, the growth rate of service exports was

27.9 percentage points higher than that of imports, driving the service trade deficit down 67.6 percent to RMB 203.17 billion, a year-on-year decrease of RMB 424.7 billion.

Digitalization of services opens up new horizons for the development of trade in services and increases the proportion of trade in knowledge-intensive services. The import and export of knowledge-intensive services approached RMB 1.86 trillion, up 13.3 percent, accounting for 44.2 percent of China’s total import and export of services, an increase of 0.2 percentage points.

It is estimated that by 2025, China’s total trade in services that could be digitalized will exceed US $400 billion, accounting for about half of the total trade in services.