China's foreign trade has witnessed overall stable growth in the first 11 months of this year, said Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC) Shi Guangsheng at a national conference on foreign trade, which opened in Beijing on December 22.

China's export value volume this year is expected to grow by more then five percent over last year, Shi told the conference.

Not only will the growth rate be higher than last year, it will also exceed the average growth rate worldwide, Shi said.

China's export volume, which slipped during the first half of this year, started to rise in July and continued to accelerate during the following months.

Customs statistics show that China's total import and export volume reached 323 billion US dollars in the first 11 months, a 12.7 percent increase year-on-year.

Of the total, export increased 6.6 percent to 174.7 billion US dollars and while import jumped 20.9 percent to 148.3 billion US dollars.

China also attracted a total of 608.16 billion US dollars in contractual overseas investment and had made actual use of 304.45 billion US dollars by the end of November, according to Shi.

The projected figure of actual overseas investment for the whole of 1999 will probably surpass 38 billion US dollars, a slight decrease from that of last year but "still considerable in scale," the minister said.

This year also saw stable development in overseas labor service contracts, with the total contractual value reaching 10.27 billion US dollars from January to November, up 2.1 percent from a year earlier, and 8.79 billion US dollars in revenue, an increase of 6.7 percent, Shi added.

At the same time, MOFTEC this year gave approval to more than 100 enterprises for dealing in processing trade overseas, involving 135 projects overseas with total Chinese investment of about 140 million US dollars.

The focus of Chinese investment overseas has shifted from trade enterprises to manufacturing companies, with the investment spread over more than 160 countries and regions.

Shi pointed to the fact that China has reached bilateral agreements on its accession to the World Trade Organization with Indonesia, Japan, Australia, Chile, the United States, and Canada this year, solving the key issues for China's WTO entry, and drastically speeding up the process.

China's trade relations with neighboring countries and developing countries have been proceeding at accelerated pace, while bilateral trade links with major trade partners including the US, Japan, and Europe have been gaining in strength, noted Shi.

The year 1999 saw China's interior areas tighten trade and economic ties with Hong Kong and Macao, achieve new developments in trade relations with Taiwan, and announce details on implementing the Law on the Protection of Investment of Taiwan Compatriots, the minister said. (Xinhua)