China’s services trade experienced rapid growth in the first five months of 2024, rising 16 percent year-on-year, the Ministry of Commerce said Thursday.
The total value of service imports and exports reached 3.02 trillion yuan (about 415.6 billion US dollars).
Exports rose 11 percent to 1.22 trillion yuan, while imports rose 19.6 percent to 1.8 trillion yuan. This is equivalent to 580 billion yuan in services trade.
Maintaining a high growth rate, the import and export of travel services reached 819.72 billion yuan, an increase of 48.4 percent, becoming the largest industry in service trade.
Trade in knowledge-intensive services continues to expand, with imports and exports totaling 1.19 trillion yuan, up 6 percent.
Exports of knowledge-intensive services in this sector rose 2.8 percent to 675.31 billion yuan. There was strong growth in intellectual property payments and personal cultural and entertainment services, with growth of 17.8 percent and 15.5 percent, respectively.
Imports of education-intensive services reached 5.458 billion yuan, an increase of 10.4 percent, while cultural and personal entertainment services and other business services increased by 49.4 percent and 17.2 percent, respectively.
