BEIJING - The trade
volume between China and the European Union has
shot up 25.3% to hit US$272.3 billion, the
Ministry of Commerce (MOC) has announced.
China-EU trade accounted for 15.5% of
China's total foreign trade volume last year, and
the EU remained China's top trade partner,
according to MOC statistics posted on its website.
China's exports to the EU reached $181.98
billion last year, a rise of 26.6% year on year,
and its imports from the EU went up by
22.7%
from a year ago to hit $90.32 billion.
According to EU figures, the union's
imports from China totaled 135.6 billion euros
last year, 4.6 billion euros ($5.9 million) more
than its imports from the United States. China has
replaced the US to become the EU's largest import
market.
China approved 2,738 EU-funded
projects in 2006, involving a contracted EU
investment of $10.58 billion. A total of $5.39
billion of EU funds were actually used last year.
As of the end of last year, China had
approved a total of 25,418 EU-funded projects,
involving a contracted EU investment of $97.95
billion. China had actually used $53.18 billion of
EU funds by the end of last year, or 8% of total
foreign funds used in China.
According to
the latest survey by the European Union Chamber of
Commerce in China, as many as 92% of EU
enterprises which have investments in China are
optimistic about their business development, 6
percentage points higher than in 2005.
The
EU has been the largest technologies provider for
China and it was the top source of technology
import for the mainland in 2006.
China
imported 2,597 items of technology from the EU
last year, with contractual funds totaling $8.66
billion, or 39.3% of China's total.
The
contractual funds volume was higher than that with
Japan, which totaled $5.24 billion, and that with
the United States, which was $4.23 billion.
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