China’s service industry maintained steady development with emerging services growing fast in the first half of 2019, according to a senior official from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In the first six months of this year, the added value of the country’s service industry jumped by 7 percent compared with last year to 24.8 trillion yuan. This accounted for 54.9 percent of China’s total GDP, said Du Xishuang, head of the NBS Department of Service Statistics.

The country’s service sector contributed 60.3 percent of the overall economic growth in this period, 23.2 percentage points higher than the contribution of the secondary industry.

In the first half of 2019, the production index of the service sector registered a 7.3 percent growth.

During the same period, emerging services secured fast growth. The production index of information transmission, software and information technology services rose by 24.2 percent, while leasing and business services grew by 8.3 percent, both faster than the average service industry growth rate.

In the first five months, the business revenue of service enterprises above the designated size increased by 10.1 percent year-on-year.

In particular, the business revenue of strategic emerging services, high-tech services and technology services demonstrated fast growth, increasing by 12.5 percent, 12.3 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

China’s service sector is expected to maintain this momentum. The business activity index for services stood at 53.4 percent in June, and the business activities expectation index for services was 60.3 percent, maintaining a high level.