BEIJING — China's tertiary sector upgraded from 2014 to 2018, thanks to the boost from the high-tech service industry, data from the country's fourth economic census showed.

At the end of 2018, the number of companies providing high-tech services nearly tripled from 2013 to reach 2.16 million, employing 20.63 million people, according to a report on the website of the National Bureau of Statistics.

The number of companies in the industry accounted for 14.9 percent of the entire tertiary sector, while the number of employees took up 13.7 percent of the total hired in the sector.

Both the total assets and the operating revenue of those companies more than doubled from 2013 to hit 31.19 trillion yuan ($4.45 trillion) and 11.67 trillion yuan, respectively, at the end of 2018.

The average labor productivity of those firms posted steady progress, climbing 88,000 yuan per person from 2013 to 566,000 yuan per person, the report showed.

In breakdown, information services held a safe lead in the industry, with the operating revenue taking up 57.8 percent of the industry's total revenue and the number of companies accounting for 44.7 percent.

High-tech professional services, research and development and design also drove the growth of the high-tech service industry.

The eastern region had 63.5 percent of the country's high-tech service firms and covered 73.4 percent of the industry's operating revenue at the end of 2018, said the report.

Concentrated areas of high-tech services boomed, with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, together with the Yangtze River Delta region, covering half of the industry's firms, labor, assets and operating revenue.