China's crude oil import is estimated to reach 130 million tons in 2005, said Wei Jianguo, vice minister of commerce on Thursday.

The vice minister said at the 2005 China Petroleum Forum held here that in the first three quarters of this year, China has produced 136 million tons of crude oil, up 4.2 percent over the same period of last year, and has imported over 90 million tons of crude oil.

According to Liang Shuhe, deputy director-general of Foreign Trade Division of the Ministry of Commerce, China's oil import volume in 2005 is expected to be only five percent higher than the level in 2004, or 120 million tons. The import growth would be 30 percentage points lower than in the last year.

From January to September, China imported 93.96 million tons of crude oil, a growth of four percent from a year ago, and imported 23.23 million tons of oil products, a decrease of 16.4 percent year on year, said Liang.

However, during the same period, China saw its export of crude oil rise by 27 percent year on year to 5.46 million tons, while the country's export of oil products rose by 38 percent to 11.55 million tons, he said.

China has endured huge losses from soaring international oil price in the recent two years, said Li Hui, vice president of Sinochem Corporation. In 2004, soaring international oil price has slowed the country's GDP growth by nearly 0.9 percentage points and has caused an increased foreign exchange payment of about US$8.6 billion, he said.

In the first nine months of this year, China has paid over 10 billion US dollars more for oil import due to the further rising price, which has caused the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of the country to go up by 0.16 percentage points and the Producer's Price Index for Manufactured Products (PPI) up by 1.45 percentage points, said Li.

Moreover, as major economic bodies such as the United States, European Union and Japan are seeing slower economic growth due to soaring oil price, China is expected to see a worsening situation of foreign trade, he added.

(Xinhua News Agency November 11, 2005)