China has signed 1,577 contracts on technology imports in the first two months of 2006, involving 4.9 billion U.S. dollars, up 157.7 percent compared with the same period of last year, statistics released Friday by China's Ministry of Commerce show.

February witnessed a record high of technology import contracts, with a sum of 3.07 billion dollars.

Ranked as China's largest source of technology in the first two months, Japan has gained 47.5 percent of all these contracts, worth 2.33 billion U.S. dollars, 3.4 times that in the same period last year.

The EU and Republic of Korea followed Japan with contracts of 1.54 billion dollars and 310 million dollars, about 31.5 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively, of the total.

The state-owned enterprises imported technology worth 3.15 billion dollars, five times that of the first two months last year.

The railway transportation sector obtained contracts of 2.49 billion dollars, making it the sector with the fastest growth rate of technology imports in China.

Source: Xinhua