China's service trade is expected to reach US$400 billion in 2010, an official with the Ministry of Commerce said Thursday.

 

Hu Jingyan, head of the ministry's Service Trade Department, said the figure is 155 percent higher than the US$157.1 billion in 2005 and represents an average annual growth of more than 20 percent between 2006 and 2010.

 

China's service trade volume in 2006 stood at US$191.75 billion, 22 percent higher than the 2005 level, Hu noted.

 

He said the nation will take a gradual approach to the opening of the services sectors and unveil more measures to boost the proportion of service exports in its total exports as well as in the world's total service exports.

 

The service exports in 2005 accounted for 8.9 percent of the nation's total exports and 3.1 percent of the world's total service exports, according to Hu.

 

Exports value of the labor-intensive sectors like transport and tourism are expected to fall to 60 percent of the nation's total service exports in 2010, he added.

 

Meanwhile, proportion of exports from capital-intensive sectors including telecommunications, insurance, finance, advertising, and counselling are expected to widen.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2007)