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China's Total Imports and Exports of Services in the First 10 Months up by 12.7% Year-on-Year

2021-12-7 14:07:58

The Ministry of Commerce released the data of China's trade in services for the first 10 months in 2021 on December 2. Shu Jueting, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce said at the press conference that from January to October this year, China’s total imports and exports of services amounted to RMB 4,198.03 billion, a year-on-year increase of 12.7%, with the exports at RMB 1,997.43 billion, an increase of 29%, and the imports at RMB 2,200.6 billion, an increase of 1.1%. The growth rate of service exports exceeded that of imports by 27.9 percentage points, bringing down the deficit of the trade in services by RMB 424.7 billion to RMB 203.17 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 67.6%.

“China's trade in services continues to maintain a good growth momentum.” Shu Jueting said. Compared with the same period in 2019, China’s service exports increased by 26.6%, an average growth rate of 12.5% over two years; and the service imports fell by 23.1%, an average decline of 12.3% over two years. The total imports and exports of services totaled RMB 413.97 billion in October, up by 24% year-on-year.

It is worth noting that the proportion of the trade in knowledge-intensive services has increased. From January to October, the imports and exports of knowledge-intensive services increased by 13.3% to RMB 1,856.6 billion. This accounted for 44.2% of the total imports and exports of services, an increase of 0.2 percentage points.

The exports of knowledge-intensive services increased by 16.9% to RMB 1,006.04 billion, accounting for 50.4% of the total service exports. The areas that saw faster growth rate were culture and entertainment services, intellectual property royalties, and telecommunications, computers and information services, up by 33.6 %, 29.1%, and 21.7% respectively. The imports of knowledge-intensive services increased by 9.3% to RMB 850.55 billion, accounting for 38.7% of the total service imports.

Shu Jueting pointed out that COVID-19 was continuing its impact on the imports and exports of travel services. From January to October, China’s imports and exports of travel services reached RMB 631.68 billion, a decrease of 27.7%, among which the exports fell by 39.5% and the imports fell by 26.1%. With travel services excluded, the imports and exports of other services in China increased by 25% from January to October, of which the exports increased by 33.7% and the imports increased by 16.1%. Compared with the same period in 2019, the imports and exports of other services increased by 27.9%, of which the exports increased by 40.1%, and the imports increased by 16%. (Reporter Wang Wenbo)

(Source: CCPIT/ Economic Information Daily)