China's foreign service trade deficit narrows

BEIJING - China continued to see a deficit in foreign service trade in June but the volume has narrowed, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed on Friday.

The country's service trade deficit came in at 90.9 billion yuan ($14.9 billion) in June, retreating from 111.7 billion yuan in May, according to the SAFE.

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

The State Council has pledged measures to accelerate development of trade in services, including gradually opening up the finance, education, culture and medical treatment sectors.

The SAFE began issuing monthly data on service trade in January 2014 to improve the transparency of balance of payments statistics. Since the start of 2015, it has also included monthly data on merchandise trade in the reports.

In June, China saw a surplus of 291.6 billion yuan in foreign merchandise trade.