Sino-Kazakh trade increased 12 times to reach nearly 4.5 billion US dollars in 2004 from 1992's 368 million US dollars, according to the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing.

The ministry said that since 1991, when China established diplomatic relations with Kazakhstan, bilateral economic cooperation has enjoyed rapid development. The two governments have signed a series of agreements on economic cooperation and set up a vice-premier-level cooperative commission.

In the first five months of this year, the volume of bilateral trade was 2.27 billion US dollars, up 25.5 percent over the same period last year.

In 2004, bilateral trade was 4.498 billion US dollars, up 36.6 percent on a year-on-year basis. China exported 2.2 billion US dollars-worth goods and imported 2.28 billion US dollars-worth.

The major goods China exports to Kazakhstan are textile products and daily necessities, while China imports mostly steel, metal ores, oil and oil products.

By the end of 2004, China invested a total of 1.8 billion US dollars in Kazakhstan, in the oil, farm products, catering and trade sectors. So more than 2,000 Chinese companies have been set up in Kazakhstan.

Source: Xinhua