China Monday said its trade deficit of cultural products and services have been gradually shrinking in recent years.

Sun Zhijun, deputy head of Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, told a press conference that the country's films reaped 3.5 billion yuan (532 million U.S. dollars) at overseas box offices last year.

Compared with the situation at the end of the 10th five-year period (2001-2005), the export of the copyrights of various Chinese publications increased by 177 percent, Sun said.

Statistics showed that the ratio between export and import of book copyrights shrank from 1:7.2 in 2005 to 1:3 last year.

In 2010, the country's turnover of the import and export of core cultural products was 14.39 billion U.S. dollars, with an increase of 15.1 percent year on year.

Turnovers at the 2010 China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair rose rapidly to 108.9 billion yuan, with 11.4 billion yuan from exports. The export was 8.3 million yuan, or over three times, more than that from the fair in 2006.

"As a result of the promotion of cultural exports, Chinese culture has markedly sped up the pace of going global and its international competitiveness and influence have significantly improved," Sun said.