China's service outsourcing industry reported stable growth in the first half (H1) of 2019 as the country steps up efforts to narrow the service trade deficit, data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) showed Thursday.

China International Fair for Trade in Services kicks off in Beijing on May 28, 2019. [File photo: IC]

Chinese businesses inked service outsourcing contracts worth 709.98 billion yuan (103.23 billion U.S. dollars) during the Jan.-June period, up 29.3 percent year on year.

Of the total, offshore service outsourcing contracts reached 464.92 billion yuan, rising 34.6 percent from a year earlier.

China saw 225,000 service outsourcing professionals added in H1, leading to a total of 10.91 million people working for the sector by end-June.

The industry's structure improvement picked up with the year-on-year growth of fulfilled contract value in testing, e-commerce platforms and other productive service outsourcing exceeding 40 percent.

Service outsourcing with Hong Kong and the European Union grew steadily, while that with Russia surged in H1 with the fulfilled contract value growing 56.9 percent over a year ago, the MOC data showed.