China’s foreign trade in the first ten months of 2011
According to statistics of the Customs, China’s exports and imports in the first ten months of the year reached $2.97538 trillion, up 24.3% over the same period last year, 12 percentage points lower than that of the previous year. Specifically, exports stood at$1.54971 trillion, up 22.0% year on year, 10.7 percentage points lower than that of the previous year; imports $1.42568 billion, up 26.9%, 13.7 percentage points lower than that of the previous year. The first ten months of the year saw a trade deficit of $124.03 billion, a decline of 15.4% from the previous year.
In October alone, China’s exports increased 15.9% year on year, 7 percentage points lower than that of last year; imports increased 28.7%, 3.4 percentage points lower than last year.
China’s foreign trade in the first ten months of 2011 has the following features.
The general trade saw rapid growth, while the proportion of the processing trade declined. From January to October, the general trade registered $1.56996 trillion, an increase of 31.6%. Exports and imports increased 29.2% and 33.9% respectively. In the same period, the processing trade registered $1.07195 trillion, an increase of 14.2%. The processing trade accounted for 36.0% of China’s total import and export volume, 3.2 percentage points than that of last year.
Foreign-funded enterprises continued to play a dominant role in the nation’s foreign trade. From January to October, imports and exports of foreign-invested enterprises registered$1.52366 trillion, an increase of 17.8% and accounting for 51.2% of China’s total foreign trade volume. Imports and exports of State-owned enterprises and private enterprises accounted for 21.1% and 27.7% of the nation’s total foreign trade volume respectively.
Prices of bulk commodities imports were volatile at high levels. Due to the impact of global excess liquidity, instability in the Middle East and North Africa, the Japan earthquakes and other factors, the prices of bulk commodity imports rose sharply, leading to the rapid growth of the value of imports. From January to October, the average import price rose 14.7%, and the average import volume rose 10.6%. The import prices of crude oil, iron ore, oil products, soybean, and edible vegetable oil went up 38%, 33.5%, 34.5%, 29.8% and 38.4% respectively over the same period of last year.
Trade surplus continued to decline. In October, the trade surplus was down 36.5% from the same period of last year, 24.2 percentage points higher than that of September. Specifically, general trade deficit stood at $5.73 billion, compared with a surplus of $2.47 billion in the same period of last year; processing trade surplus stood at $33.36 billion, an increase of 9.5%. China’s trade surplus with the United States in-

creased 11.3% to $20.06 billion. The nation’s trade surplus with the European Union declined 10.3% to $13.04 billion.
Utilization of foreign investment
From January to October, China approved the establishment of 22,368 new foreign-invested enterprises, an increase of 5.6% year on year. Paid-in foreign capital was valued at $95.012 billion, up 15.86% year on year. In October alone, paid-in foreign capital amounted to $8.334 billion, up 8.75% from the previous year.
The service industry, led by the tourism, wholesale and retail sectors, saw the fastest increase in utilization of foreign capital. From January to October, the sectors of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries made an actual use of $1.519 billion in foreign investment, an increase of 5.46% year on year. The manufacturing industry made an actual use of $43.593 billion in foreign investment, an increase of 11.69% over the same period of last year. The service sector made an actual use of$44.513 billion in foreign investment, an increase of 20.65% year on year. Among the service industry, such sectors as tourism, wholesale and retail saw the fastest respective increases of 107.28%, 70.59% and 72.48% in utilization of foreign capital.
Investment from Asian nations continued to increase significantly; investment from European nations increased mildly; investment from the United States saw greater decline. From January to October, paid-in capital from the ten Asian nations or regions (Hong Kong, Macao, the Taiwan province, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and South Korea) was valued at $81.896 billion, an increase of 20.67% year on year. Paid in capital from Japan increased 65.5%. Paid-in capital from the 27 European Union nations increased 1.05% from the previous year to $5.508 billion. Paid-in capital from the United States amounted to $2.567 billion, down 18.13% from the previous year, 9 percentage points lower than that of September.
Actual use of foreign investment in central China saw rapid growth, while that in eastern and western China saw slower increase. From January to October, the eastern regions made an actual use of $81.807 billion in foreign investment, an increase of 15.53% from a year ago, 0.33 percentage points lower than the nation’s average. The central regions made an actual use of $6.517 billion, an increase of 28.27% from a year ago, 12.41 percentage points higher than the nation’s average. The western regions made an actual use of $6.689 billion in foreign investment, an increase of 9.39% year on year, 6.47 percentage points lower than the nation’s average.
Overseas investment and economic cooperation
China’s outbound FDI From January to October, China’s domestic investors invested directly in a total of 2,733 overseas enterprises in 130 nations and regions, with a total of non-financial outbound FDI of $46.25 billion, an increase of 14.1% year on year. $15.6 billion of the FDI was made by means of acquisition, accounting for 33.7% of the total FDI.
Investments in Hong Kong, ASEAN nations, the European Unions, Australia, the United States and Japan amounted to $34.269 billion, 56.4% of China’s total FDI. FDI in Hong Kong maintained double-digit growth at 31.1%. Investment in the European Union and the United States declined 0.5% and 7.3% respectively.$14.6 billion in FDI was made by local governments and enterprises, accounting for 31.6% of China’s total FDI, an increase of 15% over the same period of last year. Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Guangdong are among the top in terms of the amount of foreign direct investment.
Overseas-contracted projects From January to October, China’s overseas-contracted projects reported a turnover of $76.08 billion, an increase of 15.3% year on year. $104.57 billion worth of new contracts were signed, up 8.8% year on year. The top ten nations in terms of the value of newly signed contracts are India, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Indonesia, Angola, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Malaysia, with a total contract value of $41.22 billion, representing 39.4% of the total value of the newly signed contracts.
Foreign labor service cooperation From January to October, the number of all kinds of labor sent abroad was 356,000, an increase of 40,000 year on year. At the end of October, there were a total of 814,000 Chinese working abroad, 17,000 less than the same period of last year. By the end of October this year, China had sent abroad a total of 5.79 million labor service personnel of all types on an accumulative basis.
(Source: Press conference of the Ministry of Commerce of China on November 16)