The foreign trade volume via the Beijing Customs surged by 36 percent year on year to reach 47.33 billion US dollars in the first five months this year, customs statistics released Thursday show.

Figures from the Beijing Customs show that the trade volume included 35.86 billion US dollars in import, up 28.2 percent year on year, and 11.47 billion US dollars in export, 67.5 percent more than that for the same period last year.

Beijing's export-oriented businesses did a trade volume of 13. 726 billion US dollars, a year on year rise of 37 percent. The figure included 8.011 billion US dollars in import, up 23.9 percent, and 5.715 billion US dollars in export, up 61 percent over last year's same period.

High-tech export totaled 2.868 billion US dollars in the January-May period, up 70.5 percent year on year and accounted for 50.2 percent of Beijing's total export for the same period. Beijing imported 48,000 US dollars of produced-in-Taiwan fruits, 1. 3 times the import of Taiwan fruits by Beijing last year.

Beijing-based foreign-funded businesses did 61.4 percent of the Beijing's import and 67.3 percent of Beijing's export for the five- month period. State-owned firms did 2.507 billion US dollars in import, up 13.8 percent year on year, and 1.479 billion US dollars in export, up 68.25 percent over last year's same period.

Asia remained a major trade partner of Beijing. Beijing imported 4.446 billion US dollars of goods from Asian countries and exported 3.103 billion US dollars of goods to Asian countries in the first five months this year. Beijing's import from Asian countries accounted for 55.5 percent of the city's total import for the first five months, and Beijing's export to the Asian region accounted for 54.3 percent of its total export during the same period.

Source: Xinhua