There was a significant growth in service outsourcing contracts concluded in Xiamen, Fujian province over the past year, according to the city's Bureau of Commerce.

Contracts of that kind worth $4.2 billion were concluded, about half of which, at $2.2 billion, were for offshore services. The total contract figure represents a 46.7 percent increase year-on-year, while the offshore figure shows a 17.6 percent rise.

The aircraft, aircraft parts and aircraft maintenance industries are the leading outsource service activities of the coastal city and their rapid expansion has been a large part of the growth of the city's outsourcing industry.

Bureau statistics show that the outsourcing contracts in aircraft maintenance alone were worth up to one billion dollars in 2017, accounting for 55.1 percent of the total offshore service outsourcing contract value.

China has attached great importance to the development of the service trade and the service outsourcing industry over recent years. Xiamen for its part has established a service trade and outsourcing research center and issued preferential policies to support their development.

Outsourcing is the business practice of hiring a party outside a company to perform services and create goods that traditionally were performed in-house by the company's own employees and staff.