It was learned yesterday from Yichang Customs that the total imports and exports in foreign trade reached a total value of 12 billion yuan in the first eight months of the year, an increase of 3.3% as compared with that of the previous year. To be specific, the exports amounted to 10.47 billion yuan, an increase of 4.5%, while the imports 1.53 billion yuan in total, a fall of 4%. And Yichang’s total imports and exports accounted for 7.1% of those of Hubei Province.

Statistics show that in the first eight months, the city's general imports and exports reached 10.58 billion yuan, an increase of 12.8%, accounting for 88.2% of the total imports and exports of the same time. Meanwhile, the processing trade imports and exports amounted to 1.33 billion yuan, a fall by 25%.

The privately-run enterprises’ imports and exports continue to grow. The trade volume reached 7.06 billion yuan in the first eight months of the year, increased by 37%, while that of the state-owned enterprises was 3.54 billion yuan, falling by 25.7%, and the volumes of those Sino-foreign joint ventures being 640million yuan, falling by 36.6%

The ASEAN has become Yichang’s largest trading partner. And the total bilateral trade volume has reached 2.04 billion yuan in the first eight months of this year, an increase by 22.3% while that with India amounts to 1.45 billion yuan, a fall by29.1% during the same period. The trade volume between Yichang and EU is 1.4 billion yuan, an increase by 19.2% while that between Yichang and America is 1 billion yuan, a fall by 20%, and that between Yichang and Japan is 820 million yuan, falling by 17.7%.

Diammonium hydrogen phosphate is the city’s main export product. In the first eight months, the top 5 export commodities are diammonium hydrogen phosphate, no backing aluminum foil, medical gauze, ammonium biphosphate and its mixture with diammonium hydrogen phosphate and active yeast. During the same period, the top 4 import commodities are sulfur, no backing aluminum foil, pianos and copper wire in terms of individual item, the export value of them being 780 million yuan, 170 million yuan, 60million yuan and 40 million yuan respectively.(Reporter: Pei Shujing; correspondent: Liu Lingqiao)