China’s Services Trade for January-August Sees Rapid Growth: MOFCOM

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China’s Ministry of Commerce says the country’s trade in services saw rapid growth for the first eight months of 2018.

MOFCOM data indicates that total services trade was 3.44577 trillion yuan for the period from January – August 2018, for a rise of 10.5% compared to the same period last year.

Services exports totalled 1.13228 trillion yuan for a YoY rise of 14.4%, while services imports were 2.31349 trillion yuan for growth of 8.7%.

China’s services trade deficit for January-August was 1.18121 trillion yuan.

MOFCOM said that the three services export sectors that posted the most rapid growth were computing and information services, personal culture and entertainment services and insurance services, which saw increases of 61.1%, 38.8% and 26.5% respectively.

Total trade in “emerging services” (新兴服务) breached the trillion yuan threshold, rising by 20.9% YoY to hit 1.13839 trillion yuan for January-August, or 10.4 percentage points ahead of growth in general services trade.

Emerging services trade saw its share of total services trade rise by 3 percentage points as a result.

Emerging services exports were 593.23 billion yuan, for a YoY rise of 25.5%, while imports were 545.16 billion yuan, for a rise of 16.3%.