Nation posts US$13b trade surplus
By Jiang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-06-13 08:49 "The trade imbalance has become a major problem of the country's foreign
trade. It is difficult to address it in a short period, " Li said.
But he
predicted that the country was likely to limit the trade surplus to within US$50
billion this year on the back of changes in export policy and rising domestic
investment.
Meanwhile, US officials said Washington would revise laws to
facilitate exports of some sensitive high-technology equipment to China, a move
that is expected to help increase US exports to China.
But these
high-tech products are restricted to civilian use and importers will have to
apply for licences from the US government.
As the liberalized items only
account for a tiny part of over 2,000 categories that are restricted by US
export control policy, the measure is not expected to resolve the trade
imbalance between the two countries.
The country's foreign trade amounted
to US$647.9 billion in the first five months of the year, up 23.9 per cent over
the same period last year, according to the customs statistics.
Imports
rose 22 per cent year-on-year in the first five months to US$300.5 billion,
while exports increased by 25.7 per cent year-on-year to US$347.3
billion.
Customs said both general and processing trade kept the pace of
growth fast over the past five months. General trade amounted to US$276.6
billion in this period, up 22.7 per cent year-on-year, while processing trade
stood at US$307.4 billion, up 23.9 per cent year-on-year.
The European
Union (EU) remained China's largest trade partner with a bilateral trade volume
of US$98.3 billion in the first five months this year, the customs data
showed.
The EU was followed by the United States, Japan and the
Association of South-East Asian Nations.
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