China's trade in services valued at around 3.94 trillion yuan ($550 billion) during the first eight months of the year, surging 20.4 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday.

Service exports were 1.91 trillion yuan during this period, up 23.1 percent from a year ago, while the imports were 2.03 trillion yuan, an increase of 17.9 percent on a yearly basis. The growth pace of service exports was 5.2 percentage points higher than that of imports, resulting in a 29.5 percent decline year-on-year in service trade deficit during this period, which was valued at 121.08 billion yuan.

In August alone, China's combined value of exports and imports of services was 543.79 billion yuan, growing 17.6 percent year-on-year.

Knowledge-intensive trade in services grew steadily during the January-August period, the MOC said.

Trade in knowledge-intensive services rose 11.4 percent year-on-year to 1.64 trillion yuan during the period.

The exports of knowledge-intensive services were 929.79 billion yuan, up 15.7 percent on a yearly basis. Export growth in intellectual property royalties, and telecommunications computers and information services were respectively 24 percent and 18.4 percent, outperforming others.

Imports of knowledge-intensive services amounted to 713.48 billion yuan, with a yearly increase of 6.2 percent. Among that, insurance service imports grew the quickest, with a growth rate of 64.4 percent year-on-year.

Trade in travel services grew 7.1 percent from a year ago during the first eight months of the year, to 542.66 billion yuan.

If excluding travel services, China's import and export of services increased 22.8 percent on a yearly basis during the period.

Compared with the same period in 2019, the imports and exports of services increased by 51.9 percent during the first eight months of the year, of which exports increased by 67.8 percent and imports increased by 36.1 percent, if excluding travel services.

liuzhihua@chinadaily.com.cn