China vows to lift value of steel imports to 1 trillion dollars by 2010

摘要

SINGAPORE - China is aiming to boost the value of its steel imports by 25 percent to 1 trillion dollars by 2010 as part of efforts to manage its trade surplus, a Ministry of Commerce official said, "We will try to improve the structure of steel exports and at the same time increase our imports, aiming to bring the trade value [of imports] up to more than 1 trillion dollars from the present 800 billion dollars," said Wang Xinpei, a spokesman for Mofcom, at a press conference late last week. He did not make predictions for how much volumes of imports would have to change under this scenario. Wang conceded that volumes of exports from China are high, but said this was mainly driven by global demand and noted that compared with other countries in Europe, North America, and Asia, China's exports of steel make up a small proportion of its total output.