BEIJING — China continued to see a deficit in foreign service trade in November but the volume has narrowed, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed on Dec 30.

The deficit came in at $15.6 billion, retreating from $89.2 billion in October.

The State Council has pledged measures to accelerate development of trade in services, including gradually opening up the finance, education, culture and medical treatment sectors.

SAFE began issuing monthly data on service trade in January 2014 to improve the transparency of balance of payments statistics. Since the start of 2015, it has also included monthly data on merchandise trade in its reports.

In November, China saw a surplus of $51.4 billion in foreign merchandise trade.