Import growth, high as it was, did not get out of control or turn around the trade surplus as many economists worried at the end of last year.

Exports also soared on the strength of domestic production capacity, reductions in tariffs and non-tariff measures of global markets and increases in quotas.

Conditions are especially favorable for China's advantageous labor-intensive products including textiles, consumer electronics and light industry products, said Yan Xianfu, a senior researcher with the National Bureau of Statistics.

China's imports and exports are expected to increase 17.7 percent year-on-year to US$600 billion this year and continue to grow 7 percent next year, according to a report by the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, a MOFTEC think-tank.

With expected transparency, stability and predictability in China's business environment after WTO accession, multinational corporations can accelerate the transfer of overseas manufacturing bases to China and help push up the volume of China's processing trade.

Processing trade, valued at US$145.2 billion, made up 55.3 per cent of China's total exports in the first 10 months.

China's WTO entry also releases the potential of non-State enterprises' exports.

In the January-October period, exports of private enterprises soared 64.1 percent year-on-year and those of foreign-invested enterprises rose 25.2 per cent, compared with a mere 8 per cent increase in exports of State enterprises.

China has taken the place of the United States over the past year as the world's largest receiver of cross-border investments.

A recent report of the United Nations said China has become international investors' favourite target country because of its steady and rapid economic growth against the backdrop of the gloomy world economic outlook.

MOFTEC statistics showed new foreign-invested businesses registered in the first 10 months soared 35 per cent year-on-year to 27,630, bringing an actual investment of US$44.7 billion, up 20 per cent from a year earlier.

China's entry to WTO means a new orientation for the administration's functions and a faster transition from a planned economy to a market economy, said Liu Guangxi, vice-president of Shanghai Foreign Trade College.

Four months after China's WTO accession, China brought the United States to the WTO dispute settlement body for its controversial tariffs of 8 percent to 30 percent on steel imports and filed its first complaint.

Ma Xiuhong, vice-minister of MOFTEC, urged Chinese companies to stand up against foreign anti-dumping charges.

Ma said MOFTEC is stepping up pressure on foreign governments through negotiations to grant Chinese companies market economy positions in trade compensatory measures.

Non-market economy positions, which require a substitute country to compute Chinese companies' production costs and proper prices, have led to Chinese companies' failure or higher dumping margins and tariffs than they deserve in many anti-dumping cases.

She said China has signed agreements with the Republic of Korea, Argentina and Brazil to set up bilateral communication systems on trade compensatory measures and is talking with a dozen other countries on the issue.

(Edited by china.org.cn December 11, 2002)