From January to September, 2022, China’s trade in services continued to grow. Services imports and exports totalled RMB4472.27 billion (the same currency below), up 18.2% year-on-year. In breakdown, services exports increased by 20.5% to RMB2148.02 billion; imports rose 16.1% to RMB2324.26 billion. Services exports beat imports by 4.4 percentage points, narrowing the deficit by 19.6% to RMB176.24 billion. The main characteristics are as follows.

Trade in knowledge-intensive services grew steadily. From January to September, the imports and exports of knowledge-intensive services amounted to RMB1,864.87 billion, an increase of 10.2%. Among them, exports of knowledge-intensive services amounted to RMB1,043.02 billion, up 14.9%; areas with faster growth in exports were intellectual property royalties and telecommunications computer and information services, up by 22.5% and 17.4% respectively. Knowledge-intensive service imports registered RMB821.85 billion, up 4.8%; the area with faster growth in imports was insurance services, with a growth rate of 56.2%.

The imports and exports of travel services continued to recover. In the first nine months, China’s travel service imports and exports stood at RMB623.66 billion, up 7.1%. Excluding travel services, China’s service imports and exports grew by 20.2% from January to September, with exports up 21.7% and imports up 18.4%; compared with the same period in 2019, service imports and exports grew by 52.6%, with exports up 68.3% and imports up 37.2%.