Sunday, January 11, 2004
China says Japan remains top trade partner
Reuters Beijing, January 11
Japan remained China's biggest trade partner in 2003 with two-way trade hitting $133.58 billion, the Xinhua news agency said on Sunday, citing customs data.
China's total trade with Japan, its top partner for 11 years, rose an annual 31.1 per cent in 2003, the news agency said, but did not give a breakdown for imports and exports.
Two-way trade with the United States, China's second-biggest trade partner, was up an annual 30 per cent last year to $126.33 billion, Xinhua said, without giving a breakdown.
China's two-way trade with its third-biggest trade partner, the European Union, shot up an annual 44.4 per cent in 2003 to $125.22 billion, it said. China's overall exports rose an annual 34.6 per cent in 2003 to $438.4 billion, while imports rose 39.9 per cent to $412.8 billion, the government has said.
China's trade surplus for all of 2003 declined more than 16 per cent to $25.5 billion from the year-ago period.
US manufacturers blame what they say is an artificially cheap currency that gives Chinese goods an unfair trade advantage at the cost of American jobs. China has shrugged off such criticism and vowed to keep the yuan, which is pegged at about 8.28 yuan to the US dollar, basically stable.
© Hindustan Times Ltd. 2004.