Foreign service trade deficit widens

Source: Xinhua | 2018-09-27

China continued to see a bigger deficit in its foreign service trade in August, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed yesterday.

The deficit stood at US$29 billion in August, up from US$25.3 billion in July, SAFE said.

Income from trade in services stood at US$18.4 billion last month, while expenditures were US$47.4 billion.

In contrast to merchandise trade, trade in services refers to the sale and delivery of intangible products such as transport, tourism, telecommunications, construction, advertising, computing and accounting.

China has taken steps to improve the development of trade in services, including gradually opening up the finance, education, culture and medical treatment sectors.

SAFE began issuing monthly data on service trade in January 2014 to improve the transparency of balance of payments statistics. Since the start of 2015, it has also included monthly data on merchandise trade in its reports.

Last month, China saw a surplus of US$34 billion in foreign merchandise trade, SAFE said.