BEIJING, July 6 -- China's services trade sustained its growth momentum in the first five months of the year, official data showed Thursday.

The country's services trade reached nearly 2.61 trillion yuan (about 362 billion U.S. dollars) from January to May, up 10.2 percent year on year, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

Trade in knowledge-intensive services expanded 13.6 percent year on year to exceed 1.12 trillion yuan in the period, the data showed.

The figure accounted for 43.1 percent of the country's total volume of services trade, up 1.3 percentage points from the same period last year.

Travel services saw a notable recovery during the period, with trade in this sector soaring 67 percent from a year earlier to 552.54 billion yuan, according to the ministry.