BEIJING-- China's software industry revenue expanded at faster pace to 152.3 billion yuan ($23.8 billion) in July, a year-on-year increase of 31.4 percent, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said Wednesday.

The software industry's growth rate in July was 2.9 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

The July figure took the country's software industry growth in the Jan-July period to 958.8 billion yuan, up 29.6 percent year-on-year, compared with 29 percent in the same period of last year, according to the ministry.

Regarding the exports of the software industry, the growth rate fell sharply to 3.9 percent in July, the lowest monthly increase in the first seven months of this year amid economic uncertainty in the United States and the European Union.

Exports in the Jan-July period rose 15.7 percent to $15.46 billion, compared to last year's growth rate of 26.2 percent.