From January to August this year, China's service trade continued to maintain a steady growth. The total import and export of services was 3937.56 billion yuan, up 20.4% year on year. Specifically, service exports reached 1908.24 billion yuan, up 23.1%; Imports reached 2029.32 billion yuan, up 17.9%. The growth rate of service exports was 5.2 percentage points higher than that of imports, driving the deficit of service trade down 29.5% to 121.08 billion yuan. In August, the total import and export of services nationwide was 543.79 billion yuan, up 17.6% year on year. According to the person in charge of the Department of Services and Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, the service trade from January to August showed the following characteristics: stable growth of knowledge intensive service trade. From January to August, the import and export of knowledge intensive services reached 1643.27 billion yuan, up 11.4%. Among them, the export of knowledge intensive services was 929.79 billion yuan, up 15.7%; The areas with rapid export growth were intellectual property royalties, telecommunications computers and information services, which increased by 24% and 18.4% respectively. The import of knowledge intensive services was 713.48 billion yuan, up 6.2%; The area with rapid import growth is insurance services, with a growth rate of 64.4%. The import and export of travel services kept growing. From January to August, the import and export of travel services nationwide reached 542.66 billion yuan, up 7.1%. Excluding travel services, from January to August, China's service imports and exports grew by 22.8%, including exports by 24.5% and imports by 20.8%; Compared with the same period in 2019, the import and export of services increased by 51.9%. (Liu Xinshe)