BIZCHINA / Top Biz News |
Foreign trade volume, surplus hit recordsBy Jiang Wei (China Daily)Updated: 2007-01-11 08:41
However, experts predict that the trade volume and the surplus will rise by a modest 15 percent and 13 percent this year, compared with 23.8 percent and 74 percent for last year. Exports in 2006 rose 27 percent year-on-year to $969 billion while imports climbed 20 percent to $791.6 billion, the General Administration of Customs said yesterday. Export growth dropped 1.2 percentage points from 2005 while imports increased 2.4 percentage points. The total trade volume grew 23.8 percent from a year earlier the fifth year in a row that it has been above 20 percent. Trade with each of the top three partners, the European Union, the United States and Japan, exceeded $20 billion. The surplus widened to a record $177.5 billion in 2006, up 74 percent from a year earlier. A countrywide breakdown is not yet available. In a bid to counter the mounting pressure of increased loans from the trade surplus, the central bank had to order commercial banks to set aside more money as reserves from January 1 for the fourth time in seven months. The regulator is likely to ask commercial banks to increase reserves another four to five times this year, reports said.
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