China, dubbed "kingdom of bicycles ", saw a drop in bike exports this year due to the anti-dumping barriers of the European Union.

Statistics from the Beijing Customs showed that the Chinese capital exported 708,000 bicycles valued at 11.39 million yuan (1. 37 million US dollars) in the first five months of this year, down by 20.5 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively, on a year-on-year basis.

Beijing's export of bicycles to the European Union numbered 50, 000, accounting for only four percent of the city's total export, Beijing News reported Tuesday.

Officials from the Tianjin Bicycle Association said that the city's bicycle industry will face a hard time if the EU proposal to raise the anti-dumping rate on Chinese bicycles from current 30. 6 percent to 45 percent is approved.

Tianjin exports more than one million bicycles to the EU each year.

As the EU's anti-dumping policy on China's bicycles has been maintained for 13 years, it hindered the China's bicycle sales on the European market.

Last year, China produced more than 79 million bicycles, making up 60 percent of the world's total. It exported 51 million bicycles, earning 2.5 million US dollars.

Though the country's bicycle export amounted to 7.171 million in the first two months of this year, the unit price averaged 34.5 US dollars, compared with 164.41 US dollars for Taiwan-made bicycle and 150 US dollars for Japanese-made bikes.

With a population of 1.3 billion, China consumes approximately 20 million bikes annually.

Source: Xinhua