China's foreign service trade deficit grows

BEIJING - China continued to see a bigger deficit in foreign service trade in December, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed on Tuesday.

The country's service trade deficit amounted to 143.9 billion yuan ($23.4 billion) in December, widening from 127.9 billion yuan in November, according to the SAFE.

Last month, the country spent a total of 252.4 billion yuan in international service trade, more than double the 108.5 billion yuan it made in the month.

For the whole of 2014, the aggregate service trade deficit totaled 1.216 trillion yuan, with 1.138 trillion yuan in revenues and 2.354 trillion yuan in spending.

The SAFE started to issue monthly data on services trade in January 2014 to improve the transparency of balance of payments statistics.

Distinct from merchandise trade, trade in services refers to the sale and delivery of intangible products such as transport, tourism, telecommunications, construction, advertising, computing and accountancy.

China's State Council earlier this month announced a string of measures to accelerate the development of trade in services, including gradually opening up business in finance, education, culture and medical treatment.