On June 12, MOFCOM Department of Trade in Services and Commercial Services introduced the overall situation of the import and export of services and the development of services outsourcing from January to April 2019.

I. About the overall situation of the import and export of services

In January-April, China's total volume of trade in services was 1744.63 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), up 4.1% year on year. Among them, the exports were 619.28 billion yuan, up 10.1%; the imports were 1125.34 billion yuan, up 1.1%; the deficit was 506.06 billion yuan, down 9.7%. Main characteristics are as follows:

First, the growth rate of the import and export of services has increased significantly. In April, the production index of China's service industry reached 7.4%, the second highest since last September, realizing the rapid growth of the import and export of services. In April, the growth rate of the import and export of services reached 9%, an increase of 6.8 percentage points over March, pulling up the growth rate of the import and export of services in January-April by 1.5 percentage points. This shows that the overall import and export of China's services continued to maintain a stable and good development trend.

Second, the proportion of the export of services continued to increase. Policies such as tax cuts and fee reductions and developing the innovation and development pilots of trade in services have effectively enhanced the endogenous power of services trade development, continuously improved the brand value of “Chinese Service”, and further strengthened the advantages of the export of services. In January-April, the export of services continued to maintain double-digit growth, 9 percentage points higher than the growth rate of import. The export of services accounted for 35.5% of the import and export of services, up 1.9 percentage points over the same period of the previous year, promoting the trade deficit of services to significantly decrease.

Third, the performance of knowledge-intensive services is eye-catching. With the continuous advancement of China’s supply-side structural reforms and the gradual improvement of the competitiveness of productive services, trade in knowledge-intensive services with high value added and high tech will develop rapidly. From January to April, China's import and export of knowledge-intensive services reached 597.28 billion yuan, with an increase of 12.7%, 8.6 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of the import and export of services, accounting for 34.2% of the total import and export of services, up 2.5 percentage points over the same period of the previous year. From January to April, the export of knowledge-intensive services was 315.7 billion yuan, up 14.7%, of which fees for using intellectual property and financial services export increased by 37.8% and 21.8% respectively. The import of knowledge-intensive services was 281.56 billion yuan, up 10.4%, of which the imports of individual cultural and entertainment services, financial services, telecommunications computers and information services increased by 45.2%, 42.4% and 30.5% respectively.

II. About the development of services outsourcing

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, in the first four months of 2019, the value of services outsourcing contracts signed by Chinese enterprises was 398.26 billion yuan (the same below, equivalent to 59.68 billion US dollars), and the execution value was 223.96 billion yuan, up 18.3% and 4.7% respectively. Among these, the contract amount e of offshore outsourcing services was 257.36 billion yuan, and the execution value was 135.17 billion yuan, up 20.5% and 3% respectively. The main features are as follows:

First, the productive services outsourcing business grew rapidly. Internet marketing and promotion service, inspection and testing service, e-commerce platform service, and procurement outsourcing service grew rapidly. The offshore execution value in the first four months were 690 million yuan, 1.94 billion yuan, 1.68 billion yuan and 2.23 billion yuan respectively, up 149%. , 83.2%, 77.1% and 76.7% respectively.

Second, the business in main contractual markets such as the EU maintained a relatively fast growth rate. In the first four months, the execution value of EU's services outsourcing was 24.51 billion yuan, up 25.1%. Among these, the execution value of services outsourcing of Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and Ireland maintained double-digit growth rate.

Third, the Yangtze River Delta played a significant role in industrial guidance. In the first four months, the execution value of offshore services outsourcing undertaken by the three provinces and one city (Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province, Anhui Province and Shanghai) in the Yangtze River Delta was 75.99 billion yuan, up 6.7%, and the business scale accounted for 56.2% in that of the whole country.

Fourth, in the countries along the “Belt and Road” routes, the services outsourcing cooperation between Russia and Central and Eastern European countries has accelerated. In the first four months, the execution value of the services outsourcing of countries along the “Belt and Road” undertaken by China was 23.65 billion yuan. Among these, the execution value of Russian services outsourcing was 1.07 billion yuan, up 54.7% year on year; the execution value of services outsourcing of Central and Eastern European countries was 980 million yuan, up 24.4% year on year.