BEIJING - China's service outsourcing industry reported stable growth in the first 10 months of 2020, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Chinese firms inked service outsourcing contracts worth about 1.1 trillion yuan ($167.2 billion) in the Jan-Oct period, up 9.3 percent year-on-year.

The executed contract value stood at 759 billion yuan in the first 10 months, representing a year-on-year increase of 13.2 percent.

Of the total, offshore service outsourcing contracts reached 652.06 billion yuan during the period, up 7.6 percent year-on-year.

The executed value of offshore service outsourcing contracts with members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership increased 9.3 percent year-on-year during the period.

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.