The services outsourcing industry contributes to the upgrading of China's foreign trade, said a senior trade official on Wednesday at the inauguration of the fourth China Sourcing Summit in Hangzhou.

Wang Chao, vice-minister of commerce, said that the government plans to nurture a number of leading companies in the field to make them more competitive internationally.

"The Chinese government will ensure a safe environment for intellectual property rights and information security protection, and we'll develop differentiation among major Chinese services outsourcing cities," Wang said.

To boost the industry, the government has taken a number of initiatives, including offering favorable tax conditions and improving talent training for the companies. It also identified 21 cities as "model cities" for services outsourcing.

As a result, the country's services industry has taken off in recent few years.

In 2011, the industry's contract value hit $32.39 billion, up 63.4 percent compared with 2010, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The latest figures from the ministry show that from January to August, Chinese companies executed outsourcing contracts worth $26.9 billion, up 54.7 percent from a year ago, with $18.7 billion of contracts from abroad, a 48.4 percent growth.

"Services outsourcing contributes to the shift of China's economic growth model, the construction of China's modern services industry, the upgrading of China's foreign trade and to an innovation-led economy," Wang said.

The rapid growth in the export of services has also made up for the slowing growth in manufacturing, experts said.

In 2011, the growth rate of China's services outsourcing was 40.1 percentage points higher than that of goods exported, which saw a year-on-year rise of 7.8 percent in the same period.