China’s total import and export of service exceeded US $ 304.45 billion in 2008, up by 21.3% compared with the previous year, down by 9.6 percentage points in growth rate. According to World Trade Status 2008 and Projection Report 2009 issued by WTO on March 23, total import and export of service in the world was US $ 7200 billion in 2008, an increase of 11% compared with that of 2007, down by 6 percentage points in growth rate. Though confronted with the adverse situation of the global financial crisis, the growth of service trade in China is still higher than the world’s average. The growth of service trade of China in 2008 has mainly the following features:

The export volume moved China to the fifth biggest service export country from the seventh in 2007. However, the growth rates of both export and import volume had dropped.

Trade deficit increased to US $11.56 billion in 2008, up by 51.9% than 2007, the largest increase since 1997.

Share of traditional service trade continues to decrease.

The financial crisis gave less impact to the new service trade sector.

Top-five trading partners, Hong Kong, U.S., European Union, Japan, and the Association of South East Asian Nations, are all developed regions and countries. Total service trade with the Top-five stood at US $ 208.25 billion, accounting for 68.4 % of the total.

Import and export by major service industry are associated with developed countries and regions. Hong Kong is the largest export market, accounting for one third of the total export, and the US being the second largest with a share of 20%。

Source: Ministry of Commerce Website