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China's Trade Exceeds 100 Billion U.S. Dollars in First Quarter
China's foreign trade in the first quarter of this year was up 15.9 percent year-on-year to 113. 81 billion U.S. dollars, according to newly released statistics from the General Administration of Customs.
These figures show that China achieved a favorable trade balance of 4.73 billion U.S. dollars from January to March this year, with 59.27 billion U.S. dollars worth of exports and 54.54 billion U.S. dollars of imports, up 14.7 percent and 17.3 percent respectively.
In March alone, China's total trade increased 15.7 percent over the same period of last year to 43.91 billion U.S. dollars, with 23.14 billion U.S. dollars of exports and 20.77 billion U.S. dollars of imports.
As far as general trade is concerned, China's imports in the first quarter surged 22.7 percent to 25.32 billion U.S. dollars, 9. 4 percent over its exports, which stood at 24.92 billion U.S. dollars.
Analysts here attributed the increase in imports to the importing of facilities by overseas-funded enterprises by means of investment in China, which added up to 3.55 billion U.S. dollars, 36 percent up on the same period of last year.
China's exports to Japan, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Russia surged over 20 percent, whereas exports to the Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan province were up by 4.9 percent and 2.7 percent respectively.
Exports of machinery and electric products were up by 24.7 percent to 26.22 billion U.S. dollars. Exports of coal and crude oil also experienced rapid growth, standing at 19.44 million tons and 2.45 million tons, up 101 percent and 262 percent respectively.
China's imports were also on the rise. Imports from Japan and the European Union alone accounted for one-third of China's total imports, totaling 10 billion U.S. dollars and 8.08 billion U.S. dollars respectively. However, China's imports of crude oil were down 20.6 percent year-on-year to 13.59 million tons.
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