China's total trade volume may exceed $2.1 trillion this year, 2007

www.chinaview.cn 2007-10-28 20:34:59 Print

GUANGZHOU, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) --

China's total volume of foreign trade is expected to exceed 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars, up 20 percent over last year, according to a report issued by the Ministry of Commerce during the ongoing 102nd China Import and Export Commodities Fair.

The export volume will reach 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars and the import volume will be 950 billion U.S. dollars, with a trade surplus of 250 billion.

"Continued global economic growth and the robust demand of the international market have contributed to China's increasing foreign trade," said Liu Haiquan, the Deputy Director of the General Department with the ministry.

The ever increasing amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) has also played an important role, said the official, citing China's actual FDI, which rose 10.9 percent year-on-year to 47.2 billion U.S. dollars in the first three quarters.

"China will continuously endeavor to improve its trade pattern to prevent the surplus from growing too fast," said Li Yushi, vice president of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the commerce ministry.

"China never seeks a huge trade surplus," Wang Xinpei, the spokesman of the ministry said earlier this week.

Also according to the report, China's trade volume would top 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars in 2008, up by around 15 percent.

In the first nine months, exports rose 27.1 percent year-on-year to 878.2 billion U.S. dollars, while imports were up 19.1 percent to 692.6 billion U.S. dollars, according to statistics from the General Administration of Customs.

The fair, commonly known as the Canton Fair, started on Oct. 15 in south China's Guangdong Province and will last until Oct. 30.

Editor: Wang Hongjiang

China-ASEAN trade speeds up

www.chinaview.cn 2007-10-20 19:01:45 Print

NANNING, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) --

China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have seen fast growth in bilateral trade with the volume being expected to reach 190 billion U.S. dollars this year.

"The figure is expected to top 200 billion U.S. dollars in 2008,two years earlier than our expectation," said Zhang Xiaoqin, secretary general of China-ASEAN Expo Secretariat.

China and ASEAN are now each other's fourth largest trading partners. Zhang said, the China-ASEAN trade volume was 160.8 billion U.S. dollars last year, while in the first eight months this year, the bilateral trade hit 127.95 billion U.S. dollars.

Meanwhile, China and the 10 ASEAN members are speeding up the tariff reduction to facilitate the establishment of China-ASEAN free trade zone.

China's average tariff on ASEAN countries' goods was slashed from 9.9 percent to 5.8 percent now and will continue to drop to 2.4 percent in 2009, and finally in 2010, which is the scheduled time for the establishment of the free trade zone, 93 percent of products from ASEAN countries will be tariff-free.

By 2010, China will establish free trade zone with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, while Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar can enjoy five more years of transition.

Besides pushing the development of good trade, China and ASEAN countries have also speed up cooperation and investment on service trade since the two sides signed the negotiation on service trade in January this year.

"China and ASEAN have entered a new stage in terms of economic cooperation and trade ties," said Zhang.

To boost bilateral economic and trade cooperation, China and ASEAN countries have held the annual China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) in Nanning, capital of the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region since 2004. The fourth CAEXPO is planned to open on Oct. 28 this year.

Bilateral trade between China, Costa Rica to hit 3 bln USD this year

www.chinaview.cn 2007-10-25 23:50:02 Print

BEIJING, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) --

China's Vice Commerce Minister Ma Xiuhong said on Thursday that trade between China and Costa Rica would hit a record three billion U.S. dollars this year on the back of strong demand from the China, up from 2.16 billion U.S. dollars reported last year.

China is expected to import 2.5 billion U.S. dollars of goods from Costa Rica by the end of this year, Ma estimated at the China-Costa Rica economic and trade forum in Beijing.

China is the second largest trade partner of Costa Rica, while the latter was the eighth largest to China in Latin America.

Bilateral trade between the two countries was recorded at 1.04 billion U.S. dollars in the first five months, up 69.5 percent over the same period last year, with Chinese exports to Costa Ricaat 164 million U.S. dollars and imports from Costa Rica at 877 million U.S. dollars.

China's imports from Costa Rica range from electronic products and integrated circuits to micro-electronic components, diodes and other mechanical and electrical products.

Costa Rica mainly imports from China shipping containers, computers, telecommunications products and also electronic products and integrated circuits.

Ma said at the forum that the two countries enjoyed good groundwork for economic cooperation, and the forging of the bilateral diplomatic relations in June would further promote trade between the two sides.

The Costa Rica President Oscar Arias, currently visiting China, extended hopes for businesses in both countries to enhance exchanges and cooperation while addressing the forum.

A Costa Rica-China Expo was held in Beijing from Oct. 24 to 26,and 28 trading companies from Costa Rica attended the expo.

Editor: Yan Liang

Barroso seeks constructive dialogue with China over trade deficit

www.chinaview.cn 2007-10-19 04:24:22 Print

LISBON, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) --

The European Union (EU) is seeking constructive dialogue with China to solve the issue of trade deficit, European Commission President Jose Barroso said here on Thursday.

We "should raise this matter in our dialogue with the Chinese authorities, of course in a constructive spirit," Barroso told reporters ahead of an EU informal summit.

As finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialized nations were set to meet in Washington Friday, Barroso said the EU would avail itself of the occasion to discuss the issue in "outreach session" with China, a non-G7 member.

"I hope that the G7 can make some progress on this issue and this is certainly an issue that we are going to raise in our dialogue with China," Barroso said at a joint press conference together with European business leaders, trade union representatives and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates.

Barroso said Socrates, who is hosting the EU summit as his country holds the EU presidency, will also travel to China in November, with the issue of trade deficit on the agenda.

Expressing concerns over the trade deficit with China, Barroso said he had received commitments from Beijing but he wanted to see more concrete results.

In an unexpected move, the EU finance ministers failed to take a tougher stance against weakening U.S. dollar, but mounted pressure on China last week, urging the emerging economy to do more to make its currency RMB more flexible.

The EU claimed RMB was undervalued, thus giving an unfair advantage to Chinese exports into the 27-nation bloc and contributing to the huge trade deficit.

According to a recent report of the Bank for International Settlements, the nominal effective and real exchange rates of RMB has risen 6.19 percent in the first nine months of this year. It hit its highest level since China's exchange rate reform in 2005 and registered the largest appreciation among world major currencies.

At the same press conference, Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, head of the European employers association Business Europe, called for eurozone members to politically intervene to prevent the continuous appreciation of the euro.

"We are asking for political intervention at the level of the world leaders on the behalf of the euro currency," he said.

The euro hit an all-time high Thursday of 1.4310 dollars, a level described by Seilliere as over a pain threshold.

On the sidelines of the EU informal summit in Lisbon, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi told reporters that he was confident that the EU and China can find a solution to the trade deficit in the long run.

"If we agree on the rules, on the anti-dumping rules, on the environmental rules, China will become a positive force in the world economy," Prodi said to journalists.

Prodi again expressed his concerns about the strength of the euro. He had accused the United States of looking only after its "domestic interests" in its exchange rate policy.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

More than half of farmer workers in China join trade unions

www.chinaview.cn 2007-10-19 00:26:10 Print

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- About 62 million farmer workers in China, or more than half of the total, had joined trade unions by the end of last month, said vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions Sun Chunlan here on Thursday.

Trade unions across the country have taken measures to enroll more farmer workers in recent years so that their interests and rights were better protected, said Sun.

Thirty-two million farmer workers have been insured against industrial injury and 27 million had been covered in medical insurance by the end of July, Sun said.

There were 23 million farmer workers in China's trade unions at the end of 2005.

The formation of trade unions in the Wal-Mart outlets in China last year was a major breakthrough in expanding trade unions for better protection of workers' rights in overseas-funded companies in China.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

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