For the six consecutive years since 1995 machinery and electronic equipment have been China's largest exports, helping the country make big strides towards becoming one of the world's major manufacturers.
Statistics from the customs reveal that between January and October, exports and imports of electromechanical products stood at US$194.47 billion, 15.6 per cent up on the same period of last year, and making up about 46.59 per cent of China's total foreign trade volume.
In the breakdown, gross exports of electromechanical products went up 12.2 per cent to US$96.24 billion, in comparison to the 6.1 per cent growth rate of total exports.
Li Huifen, Chairman of China Chamber of Commerce for the Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, said in Tianjin on November 29 that electromechanical products have contributed much to China's improvement in world ranking for foreign trade from 32nd in 1978 to the current seventh.
In addition, product structure of China's foreign trade has also been optimized. Among all imports of electromechanical products, 97.8 per cent were to tech-intensive products like machinery, electronic products and apparatus. The proportion for exports of such products was 91.18 per cent.
(Xinhua News Agency November 30, 2001)
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