Daily Times

China’s services trade sustained its growth momentum in the first five months of the year, official data showed Thursday.

The country’s services trade reached nearly 2.61 trillion yuan (about 362 billion U.S. dollars) from January to May, up 10.2 percent year on year, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed. Trade in knowledge-intensive services expanded 13.6 percent year on year to exceed 1.12 trillion yuan in the period, the data showed. The figure accounted for 43.1 percent of the country’s total volume of services trade, up 1.3 percentage points from the same period last year.

Travel services saw a notable recovery during the period, with trade in this sector soaring 67 percent from a year earlier to 552.54 billion yuan, according to the ministry. The total volume of goods handled by Ganqmod Port, the largest highway port on the China-Mongolia border, has surpassed 16 million tonnes in the first half of this year, the port administration said Thursday.

From January to June, the port handled a total of nearly 16.33 million tonnes of goods, up 200.26 percent year on year, hitting a record high, said the port administration, attributing this growth to intelligent and streamlined customs clearance. Among these goods, imported coal totaled about 15.78 million tonnes, up 222.71 percent year on year, while imported refined copper powder totaled 434,700 tonnes, a 6.43 percent increase year on year.

Situated in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ganqmod Port is a major energy import channel for the country and an important hub on the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor. It handled more than 19 million tonnes of goods in 2022.