China's service trade deficit drops in October

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China's service trade deficit continued to decline in October, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said Monday.

The deficit stood at 117.5 billion yuan (about 17.84 billion US dollars) last month, down from 146 billion yuan in September, SAFE said. Income from trade in services was 115.5 billion yuan, while expenditure totaled 233 billion yuan.

According to the SAFE report, Chinese trade deficit in services narrowed to 17.8 billion US dollars in October from 22.2 billion US dollars in September.

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

As one of the major sources of service trade deficit, tourism deficit came in at 101.3 billion yuan in October, down from 114 billion yuan a month ago. /CGTN Photo

Data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed that the deficit was largely due to a 15.3 billion US dollars gulf in spending between foreign tourists and the Chinese, who splurge more abroad than do visitors to China.

As one of the major sources of service trade deficit, tourism deficit came in at 101.3 billion yuan in October, down from 114 billion yuan a month ago.

For the January-October period, China’s services trade deficit stood at 216.5 billion US dollars, versus a gap of 198.7 billion US dollars for January-September.

China regularly registers a deficit in service trade due to huge domestic demand. The government has channeled more energy into improving the service sector, including measures to gradually open up the finance, education, culture and medical industries.

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