SINGAPORE, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- International Enterprise Singapore, a government agency that promotes international trade and partners Singapore companies to go global, announced on Wednesday that the city-state's total services trade grew 4.7 percent in 2017, after the flat performance in the previous year.
The authority said the total services trade reached 463.3 billion Singapore dollars (about 351.13 billion U.S. dollars) for 2017, compared to 442.7 billion Singapore dollars in 2016.
In a breakdown, both services exports and imports increased by 4.2 percent and 5.1 percent last year, respectively.
In the fourth quarter of 2017, Singapore's total services trade rose 4.1 percent year on year, after an increase of 6.6 percent in the previous quarter. In a breakdown, exports of services grew by 3.2 percent, following the 5.3 percent increase in the third quarter.
The authority attributed the growth in services exports to the expansion in transport services, charges for the use of intellectual property and insurance services, which grew 6.9 percent, 14.7 percent and 18 percent, respectively.
According to the authority, total services trade consists of services exports and services imports. Exports of services refer to the value of cross-border services provided by residents to non-residents, while imports of services refer to the value of cross-border services provided by non-residents to residents.
