Service trade in the first three quarters was stable and positive

According to data released by the Ministry of Commerce on April 4, China's service trade continued to develop steadily in the first three quarters of this year. Total import and export of services reached 4022.8 billion yuan, up 3.0% year on year. Among them, export reached 1420.84 billion yuan, up 9.4%; import reached 2601.96 billion yuan, down 0.2%. According to the person in charge of the service and Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, the service trade in the first three quarters mainly presents three characteristics. First of all, service exports continue to grow rapidly. From January to September, China's service industry maintained rapid growth, and the added value of service industry increased by 7.0% year-on-year, which promoted the steady growth of service trade and provided a good foundation for the rapid growth of service exports. Service exports accounted for 35.3% of service imports and exports, up 2.1 percentage points year on year. Second, the service trade deficit continued to narrow. From January to September, the growth rate of China's service export was 9.6 percentage points higher than that of import, pushing the deficit of service trade down to 118.11 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 128.88 billion yuan, or 9.8%. In addition, the growth of knowledge intensive service trade is strong. In the first nine months, China's import and export of knowledge intensive services reached 1370.22 billion yuan, up 11.0% year-on-year, 8 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of service import and export, accounting for 34.1% of the total service import and export, up 2.5 percentage points year-on-year. Among them, the export of knowledge intensive services reached 717.72 billion yuan, an increase of 13.7%; the import reached 652.5 billion yuan, an increase of 8.2%.