Taiwan-mainland China trade up 22.9% to US$20.8 B. in first 6 months

Taipei, Aug. 28, 2003 (CENS)--Taiwan's two-way trade with mainland China amounted to US$20.885 billion in the first six months of the year, representing an annual growth of 22.9%, according to tallies issued yesterday by the Board of Foreign Trade under the economics ministry.

The two-way trade accounted for 16.6% of Taiwan's total foreign trade for the same six-month period, up 1.8 percentage points from one year earlier, BOFT statistics indicated.

Of the two-way trade, Taiwan's exports to the mainland came to US$16 billion, up 19% from one year ago and accounting for 23.9% of the island's total outbound shipments for the first half of the year, up 2.3 percentage points from one year earlier. Based on the figures, mainland China remained Taiwan's largest export market in the first six months of the year.

During the same period, Taiwan's imports from mainland China posted a much higher annual growth of 37.6% to reach US$4.885 billion, accounting for 8.3% of the island's total inbound shipments.

The sharp growth in Taiwan's imports from mainland China has made the mainland replaced South Korea for the first time ever as Taiwan's third largest import source. During the January-June period of 2002, mainland China was Taiwan's fourth largest import source, behind Japan, the U.S. and South Korea.

Due to the outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China in the second quarter of the year, Taiwan's exports to mainland China posted only a single-digit growth of 6.5%, with exports of electrical equipment and machinery products seeing a slowed growth. But Taiwan's shipments of optical instrument, organic chemicals, auto parts and steel products still maintained a stable growth.