BEIJING, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- China's service outsourcing industry reported stable growth in the first nine months of 2020, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Chinese firms inked service outsourcing contracts worth about 987.64 billion yuan (about 142.65 billion U.S. dollars) in the Jan.-Sept. period, up by 11.4 percent year on year.

The executed contract value stood at 683.49 billion yuan in the first nine months, representing a year-on-year increase of 14.8 percent.

Of the total, offshore service outsourcing contracts reached 588.98 billion yuan during the period, up by 9.5 percent year on year.

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 sub-sectors: information technology outsourcing, business process outsourcing, and knowledge process outsourcing.