BEIJING — China's trade structure has further improved as the country's service trade deficit shrank significantly in the first 11 months of 2020, data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) showed on Jan 1.

During the period, China reported a deficit of 677.01 billion yuan (about $103.76 billion) in service trade, down 51.3 percent, or 712.96 billion yuan from a year ago, the ministry said.

The country's total service trade volume reached 4.08 trillion yuan in the January-November period, down 16.3 percent year-on-year, according to MOC data.

China's trade of knowledge-intensive services maintained strong growth in the reporting period, rising by 8 percent to 1.8 trillion yuan, accounting for 44.2 percent of the total service trade.

Sectors such as telecommunications, computer and information services, and financial services saw rapid increases in both exports and imports, according to the MOC.

Tourism services were still significantly impacted by the pandemic and associated travel restrictions, which is the main reason behind the drop in total service trade. From January to November last year, the tourism service trade volume slumped by 47.8 percent to 937.16 billion yuan.

Excluding the tourism sector, the country's service trade volume in the first 11 months of 2020 expanded by 2.2 percent year-on-year, the ministry said.

In contrast to merchandise trade, services trade refers to the sale and delivery of intangible products such as transportation, tourism, telecommunications, construction, advertising, computing, and accounting.