China's service trade up 3.5 pct in first five months

BEIJING, July 4 (Xinhua) -- China's service trade climbed 3.5 percent year on year to 2.19 trillion yuan (about 318.8 billion U.S. dollars) in the first five months of the year, data showed Thursday.

In breakdown, service exports rose 10.3 percent to hit 777 billion yuan during the period, while that of imports gained 0.1 percent to 1.41 trillion yuan, leading to a deficit of 635.2 billion yuan in service trade, down 10.1 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce.