FUZHOU - Chinese companies took service outsourcing orders of $11.7 billion?in the first quarter, up 43.6 percent year-on-year, said a Ministry of Commerce official on Saturday.

The country's offshore service outsourcing businesses reached $8.1 billion in the first three months, up 42 percent year-on-year, said the official at a forum held in Fuzhou, capital of east China's Fujian province.

As of March, China's service outsourcing industry had 4.46 million employees. Some 67.7 percent of them had college education backgrounds.

The orders of offshore service outsourcing which Chinese enterprises took increased to $33.6 billion in 2012, compared with $4.69 billion in 2008.