On March 31, head of the Department of Trade in Services and Commercial Services of the Ministry of Commerce introduced the development of China's trade in services in January-February.

In January-February, affected by COVID-19, China's trade in services declined, but the trade deficit continued to shrink as started last year, and its structure was improved. In January-February, the total import and export volume of services was 740.31 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), down 11.6% year on year. More specifically, the export volume was 275.07 billion yuan, down 6%; the import volume was 465.23 billion yuan, down 14.6%. The main characteristics are as follows.

The deficit of trade in services continued to shrink. In January-February, China's service imports and exports showed a downward trend, but the decline in total service export volume was 8.6 percentage points less than that in import volume. The deficit of trade in services shrank by 24.6% to 190.16 billion yuan and decreased by 62.09 billion yuan year on year.

Trade in knowledge-intensive services showed strong resistance to impacts. In January-February, China’s import and export volume of knowledge-intensive services was 276.57 billion yuan, up 1%, and accounted for 37.4% of the total import and export volume of services, up 4.7 percentage points. Of the total amount, the export volume of knowledge-intensive services was 159.18 billion yuan, up 5%, and accounted for 57.9% of the total service export volume, up 6.1 percentage points. The export volume of telecommunication, computer and information services, intellectual property royalties, and other business services increased by 5.7%, 41.3% and 1.3% respectively; the import volume of knowledge-intensive services was 117.39 billion yuan, down 4%, and accounted for 25.2% of the total service import volume, up 2.8 percentage points.

Imports and exports in some service fields were significantly affected by the epidemic. In January-February, the import and export volume of travel services was 256.33 billion yuan, down 23.1%. The import and export volume of transportation services was 146.31 billion yuan, down 4.4%. The import and export volume of construction services was 28.82 billion yuan, down 28.4%.