BEIJING, May 8 (Xinhua) -- The following are the highlights of China's business news from the past week:
FOREIGN TRADE
China's foreign trade expanded 28.5 percent year on year to 11.62 trillion yuan (about 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars) in the January-April period as global recovery picked up and pent-up demand was unleashed.
This marks an increase of 21.8 percent from the pre-epidemic level in 2019, the General Administration of Customs said.
Exports jumped 33.8 percent from a year earlier while imports climbed 22.7 percent in yuan terms.
The trade surplus increased 149.7 percent to reach 1.02 trillion yuan in the January-April period.
FOREX RESERVES
China's foreign exchange reserves expanded to 3.1982 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of April, official data showed on Friday.
The total was up by 28.2 billion dollars, or 0.89 percent, from the end of March, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).
Commenting on the April rise, SAFE spokesperson Wang Chunying said the foreign exchange transactions had functioned stably, with supply and demand in the forex market basically balanced.
SERVICE TRADE
China recorded a service trade deficit of 66.69 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, down 74.7 percent from the same period a year ago, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed Friday.
The country's total service trade volume reached around 1.16 trillion yuan in the January-March period, up 0.5 percent year on year, according to the ministry.
The lower deficit was the result of significant service export growth, which increased by 22.8 percent year on year in the reporting period. Meanwhile, service imports dropped by 13.5 percent from a year ago. Enditem
A single purchase
