By He Zhenhong

News from the Ministry of Commerce says that in 2006, the volume of China's imports and exports of machinery and electronic products amounted to US$977.17 billion with the volume of China's exports of machinery and electronic products reaching US$549.42 billion, ranking the No. 3 in the world, and the volume of China's imports of machinery and electronic products reaching US$427.76 billion, ranking the No. 2 in the world.

Statistics show that in 2006, China's imports and exports of machinery and electronic products increased by 25.7 percent, 1.8 percentage points higher than the growth margin for the foreign trade of China, and accounted for 55.5 percent of China's total foreign trade; the net increment to the imports and exports of machinery and electronic products added up to US$200.04 billion, accounting for 59 percent of the increment to the foreign trade of China.

Officials from the Ministry of Commerce held that besides a continual steady growth, steps in restructuring the structure of China's imports and exports of machinery and electronic products accelerated obviously in 2006 and there appeared certain remarkable characteristics.

Firstly, with the growth rate of exports of machinery and electronic products slowing down and the growth rate of imports of such products accelerating, the gap between those two growth rates had dwindled distinctly. In 2006, China's exports of machinery and electronic products grew by 28.7 percent, 3.3 percentage points less year on year, to US$549.42 billion while China's imports of machinery and electronic products grew by 22.1 percent, 6 percentage points more year on year, to US$427.76 billion. An accelerated growth rate of such imports and a dwindled growth rate of such exports made the gap between the growth rate of such imports and that of such exports dwindle by 9.3 percentage points year on year.

Secondly, the structure of products imported or exported was obviously optimized and imports and exports of such products as machineries and equipment, electrical equipment and electronic products, conveying machineries and instruments and meters continued to increase at a rate higher than the average growth rate for imports and exports of all machinery and electronic products. In 2006, the volume of imports and exports of machineries and equipment, electrical equipment and electronic products, and instruments and meters added up to US$929.5 billion, accounting for 95 percent of the total amount with the volume for the imports and exports of electrical equipment and electronic products, machineries and equipment, instruments and meters, and conveyances accounting for 45.7 percent, 30.3 percent, 9.4 percent, and 7 percent of the total amount respectively. Metal products only accounted for 4.8 percent while the imports and exports of machinery and electronic products with certain contents of new technologies and high technologies accounted for 53.2 percent. The exports of such products as planes, ships, railway locomotives, automobiles, numerical control machine tools, Ethernet network switches, mobile communication base stations, and plasm color TV sets had all increased by a comparatively large margin.

Thirdly, both exports and imports in general trade increased powerfully and processing trade seized a portion of 60 percent. In 2006, the volume of China's imports and exports of machinery and electronic products in general trade increased by 31.1 percent, 8.4 percentage points higher than the growth rate for imports and exports in processing trade, to US$249.92 billion.

Processing trade remained a mainstay for imports and exports of machinery and electronic products. In 2006, the volume of both exports and imports in China's processing trade of machinery and electronic products added up to US$606.56 billion, accounting for 62.1 percent of the gross imports and exports of machinery and electronic products; imports and exports of machinery and electronic products in general trade increased powerfully, and account for 25.6 percent of imports and exports of machinery and electronic products at present.

Fourthly, foreign-funded enterprises maintain their role as a principal part. In 2006, 90,455 enterprises were engaged in the exportation of machinery and electronic products while 77,839 enterprises were engaged in the importation of such products. The volume of foreign-funded enterprises' imports and exports of machinery and electronic products amounted to US$733.68 billion, accounting for 75.1 percent of the gross, and the favorable balance brought by foreign-funded enterprises' imports and exports of machinery and electronic products accounted for 65.7 percent of all favorable balance brought by all imports and exports of machinery and electronic products. The volume of state-owned enterprises' imports and exports of machinery and electronic products and that of private enterprises' imports and exports of machinery and electronic products amounted to US$140.9 billion and US$101.62 billion respectively, accounting for a proportion of 14.4 percent and 10.4 percent respectively.

Top 10 provinces or municipalities in terms of the imports and exports of machineries and electronic products in 2006 are Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang, Tianjin, Shandong, Fujian, Liaoning, and Hubei. The volume of imports and exports of machineries and electronic products for those ten provinces or municipalities amounted to US$935.19 billion, accounting for 95.7 percent of the gross. The volume of imports and exports for the remaining 21 provinces, municipalities or autonomous regions amounted to US$41.98 billion, accounting for 4.3 percent of the gross.

In 1995, for the first time machineries and electronic products replaced textiles and garniture as the largest category of commodity for the purpose of exportation in China and since then, machineries and electronic products have been taking the lead steadily among commodities for the purpose of exportation for 12 successive years. Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce show that in 2006, the scale of China's exports of machineries and electronic products already amounted to US$549.42 billion, 12.5 times that in 1995 and accounting for 56.7 percent of China's total volume of foreign trade exportation, which is 27.2 percentage points higher than in 1995 and almost got doubled. China's imports and exports of machineries and electronic products achieved a proportion of 10 percent in the world's gross exports of machineries and electronic products, next only to Germany and the USA and making China No. 3 among countries as major exporters and traders of machineries and electronic products in the world.

This year, China's imports and exports of machineries and electronic products as well as products with certain contents of high technologies and new technologies will maintain a benign development trend in developing the quality and improving the benefits steadily. In 2007, the State will emphasize on encouraging the importation of important and large equipment, key components, advanced technologies and equipment, further opening up the market on an equal and mutually beneficial basis, and ameliorating the trading environment. It is expected that the growth rate for imports of machineries and electronic products will rise to about 25 percent.

This year, China's exports of products with certain contents of high technologies and new technologies will continue to maintain a comparatively rapid growth rate higher than the gross growth rate for China's exports for the purpose of foreign trade exportation during the same period of time. It is forecast that the volume of exports of machinery and electronic products with certain contents of high technologies and new technologies will amount to US$250 billion, the proportion of such exports in China's total exports will remain above 50 percent or even continue to increase. The pattern in the exportation of products with certain contents of high technologies and new technologies will be as follows: products for the purpose of exportation will be mainly pooled in the field of electronic information and communication technologies; origins of exports will give priority to the Changjiang River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Bohai Rim; processing trade will remain a major mode of exportation but the growth rate for exports in the form of general trade will exceed that for processing trade.