China sees bigger service trade deficit in November

China saw a bigger foreign service trade deficit in November, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said Tuesday.

The deficit stood at 25.4 billion U.S. dollars last month, up from 20.9 billion dollars in October and 23.3 billion dollars in September, the SAFE data showed.

Income from trade in services was 23.7 billion U.S. dollars last month, while expenditures totaled 49.1 billion dollars.

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

China's service trade volume grew from 362.4 billion U.S.dollars in 2010 to 713 billion U.S. dollars in 2015, doubling the average international growth speed in the sector. The country is aiming to increase its service trade volume to over 1 trillion U.S. dollars by 2020.

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

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

In November, China saw a surplus of 45.9 billion dollars in foreign goods trade, down from 49.9 billion dollars in October, according to the SAFE. Endi