BEIJING - China's service trade deficit went slightly up in May, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed Friday.

The deficit stood at $27.6 billion last month, down from $24.1 billion in April, the SAFE said in a statement.

Income from trade in services was $19.3 billion, while expenditures totaled $46.9 billion.

In contrast to merchandise trade, trade in services refers to the sale and delivery of intangible products such as transportation, tourism, telecommunications, construction, advertising, computing, and accounting.

China has taken steps to improve trade in services, including gradually opening up the finance, education, culture, and medical sectors.

The SAFE began issuing monthly data on service trade in January 2014 to improve the transparency of balance of payments statistics.

The new SAFE data also showed that China saw a goods trade surplus of 25 billion dollars in May.