Foreign Trade and Investment

In 2000, China's external trade surged by 31.5% to US$474.3 billion, ranked the seventh in the global economy. Both exports and imports rose sharply by 27.8% and 35.8% to US$249.2 billion and US$225.1 billion respectively. However, in 2001, growth in exports and imports slowed to 6.8% and 8.2% due to slack economic growth in the U.S. and E.U. Decline in exports growth was particularly apparent in Guangdong which grew only by 2.4% in 2001. However, growth in exports from Shanghai and Jiangsu both remained relatively stronger at 9% and 11.4% respectively.

Export-processing trade continued to be the major form of external trade. In 2001, exports related to processing trade grew slower at 7.1%(compared to 24.1% in 2000) to US$147.5 billion while imports related to processing trade grew by 1.5% to US$93.9 billion. During the same period, export growth of non-processing trade also slowed to 6.4% to US$111.9 billion, and imports rose by 13.4% to US$113.5 billion.

In 2001, exports of machinery, electrical and electronic products recorded a growth of 16.6% (US$84.9 billion), in which machinery and its accessories increased by 25.4% (US$33.6 billion) and electronic and electronic products increased by 11.4% (US$51.3 billion). On the other hands, other exports like garment (US$32.4 billion, +0.4%) and shoes (US$10.1 billion, +2%) increased slightly only.

China's top ten trading partners were Japan, the US, the EU, Hong Kong, the ASEAN, South Korea, Taiwan region, Australia, Russia and Canada. China's trade with these ten economies together amounted to US$437.7 billion, i.e. 86% of China's total external trade in 2001.

In 2000, total external trade of foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) increased by 34.8% to US$236.7 billion, accounting for 50% of the national total. Of which, FIEs' exports increased by 34.8% to US$119.4 billion, and imports grew by 36.6% to US$117.3 billion. In 2001, growth of exports and imports of FIEs followed the overall trend of trade performance to slow to 11.6% and 7.3% respectively.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) increased in 2000. The number of newly approved foreign-invested projects increased by 32.1% to 22,347, while contracted and utilized foreign direct investment increased by 51.3% and 1.0% to US$62.4 billion and US$40.7 billion respectively. However, growth of new FDI projects dropped slightly in 2001. The number of new projects and amount of contracted and utilized foreign direct investment grew by 16%, 10.4% and 14.9% respectively in 2001.

By the end of 2001, China approved a cumulative of 390.484 foreign investment projects, with contracted and actual utilized overseas FDI amounting to US$745.9 billion and US$395.5 billion. The leading sources of investment included Hong Kong, Japan, the US, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. China has been the largest recipient of foreign direct investment within all developing countries for the seven consecutive years since 1993.

By the end of 2000, the central government approved 6,296 outward non-financial investment projects with cumulative actual investment of US$11.2 billion (of which capital contributed by the Chinese partners amounted to US$7.6 billion) in 139 countries and regions, mainly in Hong Kong/Macau, US, EU, and Japan by the end of 2000. These projects were mainly involved in international trade, natural resources exploration, manufacturing industries, transportation, food catering, tourism, etc.