Published on: 2026-05-08
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian –
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Beijing, May 8 /Xinhua/ — The volume of trade in services in China in the first quarter of 2026 increased by 2.3% year-on-year, with an impressive growth in the export of tourism services. This is evidenced by data published on Friday by the Ministry of Commerce of the PRC.
According to the agency’s information, the total value of imports and exports of services for the first three months of the current year exceeded 1.8 trillion yuan (about 262.8 billion US dollars).
In particular, exports of tourist services for the reporting period increased by 32.3% compared to the same period last year and amounted to 105.35 billion yuan, demonstrating the largest growth among all export sectors in the service sphere.
Meanwhile, the import of transportation services in the first quarter amounted to 230.2 billion yuan, an increase of 22.8%, which became the highest growth rate among the five largest categories of service imports by volume.
In the first quarter, the volume of trade in knowledge-intensive services increased by 1.6 percent compared to the same period last year, accounting for 43.5 percent of the total volume of trade in services. A particularly significant growth in exports was recorded in the field of services related to personal culture and entertainment, as well as in the financial services sector — by 25.6 percent and 16.1 percent, respectively.
In addition, in recent years there has been a rapid growth in inbound tourism in China, which is facilitated by the introduction of expanded visa-free regimes and measures to increase convenience for travelers, such as the possibility of instant VAT refunds on purchases made within the country for departing foreign tourists.
According to official data, in the first quarter of 2026, citizens of other countries made about 8.32 million visa-free entries to China, which accounted for 77.9 percent of the total number of inbound trips by foreigners and exceeded the figure for the same period last year by 29.3 percent.
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