Statistics from the General Administration of Customs showed that during the first two months of 2005 China imported 14,000 vehicles, down nearly 60 percent (over the same period of the previous year, same below); the bilateral trade volume between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) reached 16.63 billion US dollars, up 23.6 percent, with ASEAN for the first time becoming China's fourth largest trade partner.

The sharp decline in auto import is mainly attributed to the withdrawal of bonded auto import policy, requirement on importer's qualifications and domestic substitutes, experts analyzed. In fact, due to slowed down domestic market growth and measures by auto makers to put out new models, expand production and lower cost, China's auto import was already slack in 2004, with the whole-year total import (including sets of auto parts) standing at 177,100 vehicles, only 2.6 percent up.

In January and February this year, China realized a total import/export value near 179.46 billion US dollars, a growth of 21.7 percent. The total trade surplus was 11.1 billion dollars, with export and import rising 36.6 and 8.3 percent respectively.

During the two months China's import/export of processing trade maintained a strong momentum, statistics showed, with a total value over 84 billion dollars. Among exported commodities, hi-tech products represented by mechanical and electrical equipment still took a large share and traditional products such as garment, fabric, shoes kept rising. Among imported commodities, primary products and finished industrial products kept rising but automobile, steel dropped drastically, the latter standing at 3.51 million tons, down 46.9 percent.

Bilateral trade between China and its main partners kept growing rapidly during the first two months. The nation's trade volume with its top three trade partners--EU, US and Japan--reached near 30 billion dollars, 26.6 billion dollars and 24.57 billion dollars respectively, up 30 percent, 21.5 percent and 10.6 percent respectively.

By People's Daily Online