China Uses Eight Billion Dlrs of Foreign Investment in First QuarterChina's foreign trade and foreign investment maintained two-digit growth rates during the first quarter of this year.Contracted foreign investment in China during the first three months of the year totaled 15.99 billion US dollars, up 40 percent over the same period of last year, said Gao Yan, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, at a press conference held here on Saturday. China has actually used 7.98 billion US dollars, an increase of 10 percent compared with the first quarter of last year, she added. China's import and export trade volume totaled 113.8 billion US dollars, an increase of 15.9 percent over the same period of last year. Exports accounted for 59.27 billion US dollars and imports 54.5 billion US dollars, up 14.7 percent and 17.3 percent respectively. But she admitted that China's export growth rate slowed at the same time due to the influence of the slow-down of the world economy. Gao said that China's exports could lag further because of the slow down of U.S. and Japanese economies. China has approved a total 369,654 foreign-funded businesses with a contracted investment of 692.7 billion US dollars. The foreign investment actually in use was 356.6 billion US dollars. |
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