China-ROK trade to top $250b in 2012

BEIJING - Trade between China and the Republic of Korea (ROK) is expected to hit $250 billion this year, Lee Kyu-hyung, ROK ambassador to China, said Thursday.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and the ROK, Lee said at a forum on bilateral enterprise businesses.

Trade between the two countries has grown 50-fold from when they established diplomatic relations 20 years ago, Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Chao said.

The ROK is now the seventh biggest investor to China, and it has invested $52.4 billion and set up 55,000 enterprises in China, Wang said.

China has invested about $1 billion in the ROK and the volume is expected to grow, Wang said.

About 80 percent of ROK investment went to the manufacturing sector like shipbuilding, textiles and steel, but more is flowing to the service sector, said Cao Hongying, deputy head of the Foreign Investment Department of the Ministry of Commerce.

The service sector attracted about $900 million of investment from the ROK in the January-October period this year, up 102 percent year on year, Cao said.