Visitors watch exhibits displayed at the 5G telecommunication service section of the China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing, capital of China, on Sept. 5, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

In 2021, China's service trade went up 16.1 percent year on year to nearly 5.3 trillion yuan (about 831.42 billion U.S. dollars), the Ministry of Commerce said on Sunday.

Of the total, service exports reached more than 2.54 trillion yuan, up 31.4 percent year on year, and service imports stood at 2.75 trillion yuan, gaining 4.8 percent year on year.

The growth of service trade exports outpaced import growth by 26.6 percentage points, resulting in a 69.5-percent drop in the service trade deficit.

The service trade deficit stood at 211.28 billion yuan, 481.65 billion yuan less than in 2020, and the lowest since 2011.

Compared with the 2019 level, however, service trade dropped 2.2 percent, with service exports up 30 percent and service imports down 20.4 percent.

Trade in knowledge-intensive services rose last year to reach nearly 2.33 trillion yuan, up 14.4 percent, year on year.

Knowledge-intensive service exports increased 18 percent to 1.26 trillion yuan, while knowledge-intensive service imports rose 10.4 percent to 1.06 trillion yuan.

Trade in transport services grew significantly last year following the rapid growth of trade in goods. It surged 61.2 percent to more than 1.68 trillion yuan.

Trade in travel services, however, dropped 22.5 percent last year to 789.76 billion yuan.

In December 2021 alone, the country's service trade registered 619.73 billion yuan, up 28.6 percent, year on year.

China has taken a slew of measures to widen the opening-up of the service industry and pledged to make more efforts to promote the opening-up of trade in services to a higher level.