China and the United States are both important trade partners for the other as it is showed by latest statistics from China's Ministry of Commerce.

In recent years, the trade relations between the world's largest developed and the most populous nations have maintained strong growth momentum.

The bilateral trade volume in the first quarter of this year hit 43.6 billion US dollars, a rise of 24.3 percent over the same period of last year.

China became the fifth largest export market and the second largest import destination to the US in 2004, with export and import reaching 124.9 billion and 44.68 billion dollars, respectively.

The statistics also showed that 97 Chinese enterprises established business operations in the US with a total contractual investment of 140 million dollars in 2004.

Till the end of 2004, Chinese enterprises have already formed 883 ventures in the US with contractual investments hitting 1.09 billion dollars.

In the year 2004 alone, 3,925 US-funded projects registered in China with contracted investments totaling 12.17 billion dollars, of which 3.94 billion dollars were actually being used.

The American enterprises have altogether registered to pour 98.6 billion dollars, including 48.03 billion dollars in actual use, and funded 45,265 projects in China by the end of 2004, the statistics showed.

Source: Xinhua