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China's
export this year is very likely to reach 200
billion U.S. dollars, the target set in China' s
five-year plan from 1996 to 2000, a senior Chinese
official said here Friday.
Wu
Yi, an alternate member of the Political Bureau of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of China and a state councilor, told China's
foreign trade and economic cooperation
officials in a televised conference that their job
now is to reach the goal ahead of time.
She
said China's national economy has shown signs of
overall recovery. Gross domestic product in
the first half of the year grew 8.2 percent
and the increase of exports, in particular,
helped contribute to the economic recovery.
From
January to June, China exported a total of 114.5
billion U. S. dollars worth of goods, up 38.3
percent, the highest record in three-year.
Imports from the period reached 102.1 billion
U.S. dollars, up 36.2 percent.
The
state councilor cited analysis from the National
Bureau of Statistics as saying that the
exports increase has helped edge the industrial
growth by 2.9 percentage points.
In
addition, the contractual volume of overseas
investment to China in the first six months of
the year grew 24.6 percent from the same
period last year. She gave no specific figures.
Wu
urged officials to remain cool-headed and make
practical analysis of the difficulties and
uncertainties which will emerge in the coming
months, and to ensure the development of
foreign trade and overseas investment.
"To
expand exports in every possible way and to realize
the better utilization of overseas investment
both in quality and quantity are still our
main tasks in the foreign trade and economic
cooperation sector," she said.
"It
is very likely that we will hit the set target of
foreign trade for the Ninth-Five-Year
(1996-2000) plan, 400 billion U.S. dollars of
both imports and exports and 200 billion U.S.
dollars of exports. What we should do now is
try our best to reach the goal ahead of
schedule," she said.
Concerning
overseas investment, she said the growth of
contractual overseas investment should continue,
while the volume of actual overseas investment
should be kept at about the same level as last
year. |
China in Brief
