China's service trade up 20.7% in Jan-July

The value of China's trade in services jumped 20.7 percent on a yearly basis to 3.39 trillion yuan ($491.23 billion) in the first seven months of 2022, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed on Thursday.

In the meantime, service exports expanded 22.8 percent year-on-year to 1.64 trillion yuan, and service imports amounted to 1.75 trillion yuan, up 18.9 percent on a yearly basis. That has resulted in a year-on-year decline of 20.1 percent in the trade deficit during the period, which was 107.73 billion yuan.

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

The government's data also showed that the trade in knowledge-intensive services grew steadily between January and July. The imports and exports of knowledge-intensive services totaled 1.42 billion yuan, increasing 10.2 percent from a year earlier.