The total purchase volume of world famous retailers such as Carrefour, Wal-Mart and Metro in China exceeded 200 billion yuan (25 billion U.S. dollars) last year, the Beijing Daily reported on Monday.

German trading group Metro, the third largest trader and retailer in the world, plans to purchase goods worth 300 million yuan in Beijing this year, the newspaper quoted sources with the company as saying.

More than 90 percent of the products sold in Metro's stores in China are provided by Chinese manufacturers and traders.

Each year, Metro purchases commodities worth approximately 19.3 billion yuan from China for its global sales network, it reported. The volume for Auchan, another retailer giant from Europe, is about 1.9 billion yuan.

In 2004, the France-based Carrefour purchased products worth 25.7 billion yuan in China, and in 2005, the figure rose to 36.8 billion yuan.

In 2003, the U.S.-based Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, purchased commodities worth 120.4 billion yuan in China, and in 2004, the figure rose to 144.5 billion yuan.

The huge purchasing volume proves that China has already become a world manufacturing center, said Professor Hong Tao with the Beijing Industry and Commerce University.

It has been four to five years since these foreign retailers started to purchase a lot in China, Hong said. "They take China as a large purchasing center due to the cheap prices here," he said.

These purchasing activities not only contribute a lot to China's soaring foreign trade volume, but also bring energy and raw material pressure to China, he said.

Source: Xinhua