On September 4, the chief of MOFCOM Department of Trade in Services and Commercial Services introduced the general situation of the service trade in January-July 2019.

In January-July 2019, China's total service trade reached 3088.28 billion yuan (RMB, the same as below), with an increase of 3.2% year on year. Among them, the export was 1100.58 billion yuan, increasing by 9.5% year on year, and the import was 1987.7 billion yuan, basically staying unchanged year on year. It mainly presented the following features:

The growth rate of service exports increased. From January to July, China's service industry production maintained rapid growth, and the service sector production index accumulated a year-on-year growth rate of 7.1%, driving the rapid growth of service exports. In July, service exports increased by 13.3%, significantly faster than that of the previous six months, pulling up the rapid growth of the service exports in January-July. Service exports accounted for 35.6% of service imports and exports, up 2 percentage points year on year.

The trade deficit in services continued to narrow. From January to July, China's service export growth rate was 9.5 percentage points higher than the import growth rate, pulling down the service trade deficit by 887.12 billion yuan, with a decrease of 95.97 billion yuan year on year, decreasing by 9.8%.

Knowledge-intensive service trade grew rapidly. From January to July, the import and export of knowledge-intensive services in China reached 1,057.22 billion yuan, with an increase of 10.9%, which was 7.7 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of service imports and exports, accounting for 34.2% of the total import and export of services, up 2.3 percentage points year on year. Among them, the export of knowledge-intensive services was 556.28 billion yuan, up 13.3%, and the import was 500.94 billion yuan, up 8.3%. The service field with rapid growth in import and export includes personal culture and entertainment services, up 27.5%, financial services, up 22.5%, and telecommunications, computers and information services, up 19.4%.