China's services production decline narrows in April

China's Index of Services Production fell 4.5 percent year on year in April, narrowing from 9.1 percent in March, as economic activities continued to recover, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Friday.

In the first four months of this year, the reading dropped 9.9 percent year on year, recovering from the 11.7-percent fall in the first quarter.

Modern services production logged steady growth, with the sub-index for information transmission, software and information technology services edging up 5.2 percent year on year in April, and that for financial services and real estate grew 4.4 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.

Sectors once hit hard by the COVID-19 epidemic, such as transportation, warehousing and post, wholesale and retail, as well as hospitality and catering, saw smaller contraction in April than the previous month, the NBS data showed.

Business activities in the services sector also picked up last month, with the Business Activity Index for services came in at 52.1 percent, up 0.3 percentage points from March, according to the NBS.

The New Orders Index for services rose 2.6 percentage points from March to 51.9 percent in April. Enditem