BEIJING — The executed contract value of China's offshore service outsourcing business stood at $105.78 billion in 2020, crossing the threshold of $100 billion for the first time, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said on Jan 21.

This marked an expansion of 9.2 percent from a year ago and led to an increase of 3.8 percentage points in the growth of the country's service exports, achieving the goal set for the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), according to the MOC.

Last year, the executed contract value of the country's overall service outsourcing business came in at 1.21 trillion yuan, up 13.3 percent year-on-year.

China's service outsourcing with the United States totaled 155.06 billion yuan in terms of the fulfilled contract value, up 17 percent from a year ago, the ministry said.

In 2020, the United States, China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the European Union ranked as the top three markets in terms of the fulfilled contract value, accounting for 53.8 percent of the total.

China's offshore service outsourcing with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative totaled 136.06 billion yuan in terms of the fulfilled contract value, up 8.9 percent from a year ago.

Outsourcing is the business practice of hiring a party outside a company to perform services and make goods traditionally undertaken by the company's employees.

In China, service outsourcing is typically divided into three subsectors: information technology outsourcing, business process outsourcing and knowledge process outsourcing.