BEIJING - China continued to see a deficit in foreign service trade in February but the volume continued to narrow, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed Monday.

Income from trade in services stood at $19.5 billion last month, while expenditure was $35.5 billion, resulting in a deficit of $16 billion.

The deficit narrowed from the $20.7 billion seen a month earlier.

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

The State Council has pledged measures to improve the development of trade in services, including gradually opening up the finance, education, culture and medical treatment sectors.

SAFE began issuing monthly data on service trade in January 2014 to improve the transparency of balance of payments statistics. Since the start of 2015, it has also included monthly data on merchandise trade in its reports.

Last month, China saw a surplus of $25.9 billion in foreign merchandise trade.