A bird's-eye view of Xiamen, Fujian province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In the first quarter of this year, Xiamen companies undertook actual service outsourcing that amounted to 6.4 billion yuan ($975.45 million), an increase of 38.4 percent year-on-year, which was 21.2 percentage points higher than the national growth rate.

The contracted service outsourcing amounted to 19.45 billion yuan during the same period, up 13.8 percent year-on-year.

Of which, the actual offshore service outsourcing amounted to 3.92 billion yuan, up 23.1 percent year-on-year, which was 11 percentage points higher than the national growth rate.

With regards to international markets, the actual offshore service outsourcing undertaken by Xiamen companies in the United States, the European Union and countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative increased by 20.1 percent, 23.9 percent, and 40.5 percent year-on-year, respectively, while Hong Kong witnessed a year-on-year increase of 21.8 percent during the same period.

In terms of business structure, the actual information technology outsourcing, business process outsourcing, and knowledge process outsourcing grew 42 percent, 21.3 percent, and 38.6 percent, respectively, during the same period.

During the first three months, the actual service outsourcing undertaken by private companies grew 31.7 percent year-on-year.

By the end of March, the service outsourcing industry had employed a total of 229,000 people this year, and 58.2 percent of which have a university degree or above.