Players take half of foreign trade (Xinhua) Updated: 2006-06-25 09:08
Foreign companies accounted for more than half of China's foreign trade,
taking almost three in every five dollars in imports and exports last
year.
The 2005 Top 200 list of China's importers and exporters listed 148
foreign companies, up 50 percent from 2001, while four privately-owned Chinese
companies also elbowed their way on to the list.
"Compared with
state-owned and collectively-owned firms, foreign and privately-owned companies
showed greater growth potential in terms of imports and exports after China
became a World Trade Organization (WTO) member,"said Zhang Lichuan, director of
the China Customs Statistics Department.
United States telecommunications
giant Motorola was the top foreign-owned exporter in fourth place with exports
worth 6.45 billion U.S. dollars, while Republic of Korea telecommunications and
electronics giant Samsung was the top foreign-owned importer, bringing in goods
worth 4.32 billion dollars and ranking ninth overall.
The list showed 39
state-owned, nine collectively-owned and four privately-owned companies gained
the biggest share of export value, while 130 foreign, 60 state-owned, six
collectively-owned and four privately-owned companies gained the biggest share
of import value.
The nature of China's foreign trade and its economy was
reflected in the rankings: top importer was the China Petroleum and Chemical
Corp. (Sinopec) with imports valued at 24.72 billion U.S.
dollars.
Chinese oil firms Petrochina, China Petrochemical International
Business Corp. and Sinochem ranked fourth, fifth and sixth respectively in
imports.
In 2005, foreign companies reaped 831.7 billion dollars from
imports and exports, 58.5 percent of the country's total, up 7.7 percentage
points over 2001.
Privately-owned companies raked in 167.4 billion
dollars of the import and export value in 2005, 18.2 times more than 2001, from
1.7 percent of the total import and export value in 2001 to 11.8 percent in 2005
with an annual increase of 109.4 percent.
Privately-owned companies
contributed 17.4 percent of the country's trade.
Zhang said self-employed
business people would likely feature prominently on future lists since being
allowed engage in foreign trade in July 2004. Imports and exports by
self-employed business people jumped to 140 million dollars in 2005 from 4.2
million dollars in 2004. (For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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