The person in charge of the Ministry of Commerce's Department of Trade in Services introduced the development of service trade in January and February 2026.

In January-February 2026, China's total service import and export value was 1.14307 trillion yuan, a decrease of 3.9% year-on-year. Among them, exports were 442.49 billion yuan, an increase of 4.7%; imports were 700.58 billion yuan, a decrease of 8.7%. The service trade deficit was 258.1 billion yuan, narrowing by 86.52 billion yuan compared to the same period last year. It presents the following characteristics: The proportion of knowledge-intensive service import and export has increased. In January-February, the import and export of knowledge-intensive services were 486.27 billion yuan, a decrease of 3.2%, accounting for 42.5% of the total service import and export, an increase of 0.3 percentage points compared to the same period last year. Among them, knowledge-intensive service exports were 248.23 billion yuan, an increase of 2.4%; knowledge-intensive service imports were 238.04 billion yuan, a decrease of 8.4%. Travel, other commercial services, and transportation are the top three sectors. In January-February, the import and export of travel services reached 362.59 billion yuan, a decrease of 11.8%, making it the largest sector in China's service trade; with exports at 60.96 billion yuan, an increase of 22.5%, and imports at 301.63 billion yuan, a decrease of 16.5%. The import and export value of other commercial services and transportation were 272.32 billion yuan and 212.23 billion yuan, respectively. According to the newly released "International Service Trade Statistics Monitoring System" jointly issued by the Ministry of Commerce, the National Bureau of Statistics, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange in January 2026, a new statistical method has been adopted for the compilation of service import and export data from January to February 2026, mainly involving seven areas including transportation services, other commercial services, financial services, construction services, telecommunications, computing and information services, personal cultural and entertainment services, and processing services.