BEIJING -- China's foreign service trade deficit widened slightly in November, the latest data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed.

China saw a deficit of 127.9 billion yuan ($20.9 billion) in foreign service trade in November, up from 106 billion yuan recorded in October.

In November, China spent a total of 178.1 billion yuan in foreign service trade, outweighing the 50.2 billion yuan gained.

In the first 11 months of this year, the aggregate service trade deficit totaled 951.9 billion yuan, with 1.1 trillion yuan in revenues and 2.05 trillion yuan in spending.

SAFE started to issue monthly data on services trade in January 2014 to improve the transparency of balance of payments statistics.

Distinct from merchandise trade, trade in services refers to the sale and delivery of intangible products such as transport, tourism, telecommunications, construction, advertising, computing and accountancy.