China's Trade Approximated to US$70 Billion in First Two Months

China's foreign trade reported a 16 percent increase hitting 69.91 billion US dollars in the first two months of this year, according to figures just released by the General Administration of Customs.

Statistics show that China's exports in January and February increased to 36.14 billion US dollars and 33.77 billion US dollars respectively, up 14.5 and 17.7 percent year-on-year.

As far as general trade is concerned, China's imports surged 25 percent to 15.81 billion US dollars, whereas exports experienced a lower growth of 9.6 percent to 14.79 billion US dollars, resulting in an adverse balance amounting to 1.02 billion US dollars. Analysts here attributed this to China's further reduction of import tariffs earlier this year.

China's imports from the European Union and the US in the past two months were up by 22 percent and 23.1 percent respectively. Meanwhile, China's imports from Russia surged 125 percent, and imports from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were up by 28.6 percent.

While China's imports of soybeans, machinery and rolled steels are on the rise, crude oil imports decreased by 13.8 percent year-on-year to 8.9 million tons.

Except for Taiwan Province, China's exports to major trade partners experienced significant growth in January and February. Exports to Japan, ASEAN and Russia were up by 21.5 percent, 27.9 percent and 35.2 percent respectively.

China's exports of machinery and electric products during the past two months surged 27.4 percent to hit 16.12 billion US dollars, representing 44.6 percent of the country's total exports.

Overseas-invested companies reported a 21.5 percent increase to 35.41 billion US dollars, 50.7 percent of China's total trade in the past two months.

China's foreign trade in February alone reported a 32.7 percent increase to 37.43 billion US dollars, with exports up 29.9 percent at 19.2 billion US dollars, and imports up by 35.7 percent at 18.23 billion US dollars.






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