The Ministry of Commerce held a regular press conference today (September 1) to release relevant data on my country's trade in services from January to July.
From January to July, my country's service trade continued to maintain steady growth. The total import and export of services was 3,392.21 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.7%; of which service exports were 1,642.24 billion yuan, an increase of 22.8%; imports were 1,749.97 billion yuan, an increase of 18.9%. The growth rate of service exports was 3.9 percentage points higher than that of imports, driving the service trade deficit to drop by 20.1% to 107.73 billion yuan. In July, the total import and export of services in my country was 499.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.7%.
Trade in knowledge-intensive services grew steadily. From January to July, the import and export of knowledge-intensive services was 1,418.07 billion yuan, an increase of 10.2%. Among them, the export of knowledge-intensive services was 795.47 billion yuan, an increase of 12.9%; the areas with faster export growth were telecommunications, computer and information services, and other commercial services, which increased by 15.2% and 14% respectively. The import of knowledge-intensive services was 622.6 billion yuan, an increase of 6.9%; the fast-growing field of imports was insurance services, with a growth rate of 77.2%.
Imports and exports of travel services continued to recover. From January to July, my country's import and export of travel services was 462.23 billion yuan, an increase of 7.5%, of which exports fell by 21.5% and imports increased by 10.8%. Excluding travel services, from January to July, my country's service imports and exports increased by 23.1%, of which exports increased by 24.3% and imports increased by 21.8%; compared with the same period in 2019, service imports and exports increased by 51.5%, of which exports increased by 66% and imports increased 36.9%.