Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, April 05, 2003
China Further Extends Oil, Mineral Product Imports
China remarkably extended its imports of oil and lacking mineral products in 2002, further enlarging the trade deficit in these areas, according to the "2002China Land and Resources Communique" released Thursday.
China remarkably extended its imports of oil and lacking mineral products in 2002, further enlarging the trade deficit in these areas, according to the "2002China Land and Resources Communique" released Thursday.
The communique said the country's total trade volume in importing oil and mineral products reached 110 billion US dollars in 2002, 10 billion US dollars more than that of the previous year.
In 2002, China imported a total of 69.41 million tons of crude oil, while the figure was 60.25 million tons in 2001.
In a bid to further promote the import of oil and in-need mineral products, China dropped its mineral product import tariff from 9.03 percent to 6.9 percent.
Pan Wencan, director of the Planning Department of the Land andResources Ministry, said that faced with the changing international situation, China will further diversify its import sources of rare mineral products and oil to ensure import safety this year.
In 2002, the China National Petroleum Cooperation explored a total of 21.23 million tons of crude oil in 2003, an increase of five million tons from the previous year.