Beijing (People's Daily) - China's high-end production service imports increased by more than 20 percent from January to September, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said on Tuesday.

Beijings Zhongguancun Software Park (Photos: VCG)

In the first three quarters, China's service trade was generally stable, the structure was continuously optimized, the quality and efficiency were significantly improved, and the high-quality development was solid, the latest data said.

The first nine months witnessed total imports and exports of China's services reaching 3.8 trillion yuan ($561.17 billion), a year-on-year increase of 10.5 percent, the data showed.

Exports were worth 1.2 trillion yuan, up 14 percent with imports at 2.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.9 percent, or a deficit of 1.3 trillion yuan.

The growth rate of service foreign trade, imports and exports were 15.2 percent, 18.8 percent and 13.6 percent, respectively.

An official of MOFCOM said that the high-quality development of the economy has pushed forward the rapid growth of service imports and exports. Since 2018, the domestic economy has been developing steadily. A series of opening-up measures and service trade policies have significantly improved the quality of economic development.

Meanwhile, the economic transformation and upgrading has accelerated the rapid growth of imports of high-end production services.

From January to September, imports of high-end production services, including financial services and intellectual property fees reached growth rates of 22.1 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

With the supply-side structural reforms carried out and the acceleration of the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, China's production service consumption has accelerated and the demand for high-end production services is being unleashed continuously.

Sound development of emerging services has driven the optimization of the service trade structure. In the first nine months, total imports and exports of emerging services was 1.2 trillion yuan, up 20.1 percent, which was higher than the overall growth rate of service imports and exports by 9.6 percentage points, boosting the proportion of imports and exports of emerging services by 2.7 percentage points to 33 percent.

The rapid growth of knowledge-intensive service exports has continued to improve China's export competitiveness. From January to September, service exports continued to grow faster than imports, and the growth rate of service exports was 5.1 percentage points higher than that of imports. The official noted that the improvement in China's knowledge-intensive service export competitiveness will make "China Service" even more influential as a national brand.