China's services trade jumps 33.5% to hit $150b in the first two months

China's trade in services soared 33.5 percent year-on-year to reach 953.48 billion yuan ($149.7 billion) in the first two months of this year, the Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday.

Service exports totaled 467.58 billion yuan during the January-February period, up 39.4 percent on a yearly basis, and service imports stood at 485.9 billion yuan, up 28.3 percent year-on-year, the ministry said in an online statement.

As the growth of service trade exports outpaced that of imports by 11.1 percentage points during the two-month period, the deficit of service trade fell 57.6 percent to 18.31 billion yuan, 24.91 billion yuan less than the same period last year.

Trade in knowledge-intensive services rose in the first two months of this year to reach 382.4 billion yuan, up 17.9 percent on a yearly basis, according to the ministry data.

In the meantime, trade in travel services surged 16.9 percent year-on-year to 149.77 billion yuan.