China's service trade continues rise, ministry says

China's service trade rose 14.7 percent year-on-year to reach 4.68 trillion yuan ($734.29 billion) in the first 11 months of this year, the Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday.

Service exports totaled 2.24 trillion yuan, up 31.5 percent from a year ago, and service imports stood at 2.44 trillion yuan, up 2.6 percent year-on-year.

As the growth of service trade exports outpaced that of imports by 28.9 percentage points, the deficit of service trade fell 69.9 percent to 203.9 billion yuan, 473.12 billion yuan less than the same period last year.

In November alone, the country's service trade registered 478.58 billion yuan, up 35.4 percent year-on-year, the ministry said.

Trade in knowledge-intensive services rose in the January-November period to reach 2.04 trillion yuan, up 13.5 percent on a yearly basis.

Knowledge-intensive service exports increased 18.1 percent from a year ago to 1.11 trillion yuan, while knowledge-intensive service imports rose 8.3 percent to 929.05 billion yuan.

Trade in travel services continued to decline, the ministry said.

In the January-November period, trade in travel services dropped 25.3 percent year-on-year to 700.52 billion yuan as COVID-19 continues to affect people's travel patterns.

Excluding travel services, China's service trade rose 26.6 percent during the first 11 months.