GUANGZHOU: Guangdong Province's foreign trade declined by 1.4 per cent last month year-on-year, a slight drop that may harm the province's hopes of exporting more than US$100 billion in products this year.

Trade volume for July was US$14.6 million, said customs officials in the South China province. Exports fell 1.1 per cent to US$7.9 billion in July while imports dropped 1.8 per cent compared with July 2000 to hit US$6.7 billion.

The downturn meant that the total import and export volumes rose by just 3.1 per cent to US$96.2 billion for the first seven months this year.

But Guangdong, China's biggest exporter and importer, still accounted for 33.8 per cent of the country's total foreign trade volume in that period.

The province's export volume came to US$51 billion in the first seven months, up only 0.4 per cent over the same period of 2000 while imports stood at US$45.2 billion, an increase of 6.4 per cent.

Exports from State-owned enterprises and joint ventures witnessed declines while wholly foreign-funded companies, collective firms and private corporations saw increases since the beginning of the year.

Exports from wholly foreign-funded companies rose 20.6 per cent to US$16.5 billion between January and July, while exports from collective firms grew 22.9 per cent to hit US$1.8 billion.

And exports from private companies sharply increased, up 85.4 per cent to reach US$540 million.

Machinery, electronics and high-tech products continued to play a big part in Guangdong's exports. Machinery and electronic products exports grew 10.2 per cent to US$29.2 billion, representing 57.2 per cent of the province's total.