Despite China’s economic deceleration, its outsourcing industry experienced very positive growth during the year of 2015.

Shen Danyang, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce said: “Chinese companies inked service outsourcing contracts worth $130.9 billion” - a rise of 21.5 per cent compared to 2014. “Nearly half of the offshore deals were related to information technology services”, he added.

Contracts with businesses from the two major Chinese trade partners – the United States and the European Union – rose by 17.5 per cent and 17.6 per cent respectively, while contracts with Japanese businesses fell by 9.8 per cent.

China is today the world’s second-largest service outsourcing providers after India.

The Chinese government sees this sector as the new big vehicle to boost employment as well as the domestic economy.

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter

Related: China’s stock market closes early on the first trading day of 2016