China’s foreign trade exhibited sustained growth in the first ten months of 2025, expanding by 3.6% and signaling a steady global demand recovery complemented by remarkable resilience within its domestic services sector. This momentum, highlighted by recent figures released by the Ministry of Commerce, suggests China’s economy is successfully leveraging high-value sectors, especially as international travel services surge dramatically.
The overall expansion of goods and services trade underscores China’s adaptability amid fluctuating global economic conditions. While merchandise trade remains crucial, the services sector has emerged as a significant economic stabilizer and growth driver, posting consistent gains throughout the year.
Service Trade Posts Significant Gains
In the first three quarters of 2025, China’s total services imports and exports reached nearly 5.94 trillion yuan (approximately $838 billion), marking a substantial 7.6% increase compared to the previous year. This growth was notably imbalanced in favor of exports, which climbed robustly by 14.4% to exceed 2.6 trillion yuan. Conversely, services imports showed a more modest rise of 2.8%, totaling slightly over 3.33 trillion yuan.
This differential growth rate in services trade led to a significant achievement: the nation’s services trade deficit narrowed by 238.24 billion yuan year-over-year. This indicates a strengthening competitive position for China’s tertiary industries on the global stage.
Knowledge-Intensive and Travel Sectors Lead Momentum
Analysis of the data reveals two key segments propelling the services expansion: knowledge-intensive services and travel.
Knowledge-intensive services, which include areas like financial, technical, and intellectual property dealings, continued to serve as a primary growth engine. Combined imports and exports in this category rose 6.4% annually, totaling approximately 2.27 trillion yuan. This expansion highlights China’s focus on moving up the global value chain through specialized expertise.
Perhaps the most dramatic increase was registered in travel-related services. Total trade in this sector neared 1.64 trillion yuan, reflecting an 8.8% year-on-year increase. Crucially, the export of travel services—denoting earnings from international visitors in China—saw a staggering surge of 54.4% during the reporting period. This performance suggests a robust rebound in international tourism and business travel following earlier restrictions, providing a substantial boost to service revenues.
Outlook and Policy Implications
China’s continued strong trade performance, particularly in services, suggests that internal domestic policies aimed at fostering higher-quality economic development are yielding positive results. The move toward higher-value knowledge-intensive trade increases economic resilience and reduces reliance on traditional manufacturing exports.
Furthermore, the substantial narrowing of the services trade deficit indicates improving efficiency and competitiveness in sectors ranging from consultancy to tourism. As global economic recovery solidifies, these domestic structural improvements will better position China to capture increasing international demand, reinforcing its role as a central pillar of global commerce. Future policy will likely continue supporting market liberalization and sector-specific reform to maintain this trajectory in specialized services.