SteelOrbis Shanghai
According to the statistics released by China's General Administration of Customs, China's trade volume for the first nine months of the current year approached $1.9671 trillion in value, up 25.2 percent year on year. Over the same period of time, Chinese exports totaled $1.074 trillion, up 22.3 percent. Meanwhile, imports totaled $893.1 billion, up 29 percent year on year. The total trade surplus for the period in question has reached $180.9 billion, down $4.92 billion or 2.6 percent year on year.
China's total trade volume in September amounted to $243.5 billion, up 21.4 percent over the same period last year. Exports in September increased 21.5 percent to $136.4 billion, while imports rose 21.3 percent year on year to $107.1 billion, resulting in the trade surplus of $29.3 billion - a new historical high.
Meanwhile, bilateral trade between China and the US showed a certain slowdown in its growth rate, while trade between China and India increased rapidly. In January-September 2008, the European Union (EU) continued to be China's biggest trading partner, with the trading value between the two sides totaling $322.5 billion, up 25.9 percent year on year. At the same time, the trading volume between China and the US, China's second largest partner, rose 13.8 percent to $251.5 billion. Japan remained China's third largest trading partner, with bilateral trade jumping 17.8 percent to $202.7 billion in the January-September period.
In addition, bilateral trade between China and India, which is ranked as China's tenth largest trading partner, amounted to $42.05 billion, up 54.9 percent, representing the fastest growth rate among China's top ten trading partners.
Looking at import products, China speeded up its imports of primary products, with the average prices of major product imports remaining high.
In the first nine months of this year, China's imports of primary products shot up 69.5 percent to $294.2 billion. Specifically, during the period in question imports of iron ore totaled 350 million mt, up 22 percent, with the average price jumping by 77 percent to $141.3/mt.