Foreign Trade

In the first five months, the volume of China's foreign trade reached $647.85 billion, expanding 23.9 percent compared with the same period last year, according to statistics released by the General Administration of Customs (see graph 1). The trade surplus stood at $46.79 billion at the end of May.

In May alone, the foreign trade volume was up 23.6 percent to $133.22 billion. Of the total, exports arrived at $73.11 billion and imports stood at $60.11 billion, up 25.1 percent and 21.7 percent, respectively, year on year.

From January to April, total volumes of general trade and processing trade amounted to $276.56 billion and $307.43 billion, ranging up 22.7 and 23.9 percent, respectively, compared with the year-earlier period.

The EU, the United States, Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations remained the country's four largest trading partners (see graph 2).

Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shanghai were the three provinces and municipalities with the largest foreign trade volumes, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the national total (see graph 3).

Machinery and electrical products contributed 57.4 percent to total exports. From January to May, exports of machinery and electrical products were valued at $199.43 billion, surging 31.6 percent over the year-earlier period. Of this total, exports of hi-tech products reached $101.26 billion, shooting up 33.1 percent over a year ago. Exports of clothes and shoes expanded 27.3 percent and 18.5 percent to $31.04 billion and $18.5 billion. However, exports of crude oil and refined oil products decreased 6.6 percent and 17.2 percent, standing at 2.52 million tons and 5.29 million tons, respectively.

During the January-May period, China imported $73.93 billion of primary products, shooting up 32.2 percent compared with the same period last year. Of the total, soybean imports stood at 103.9 million tons, up 9.6 percent from a year ago. The country also bought manufactured goods worth $226.59 billion, 18.9 percent more than the figure in the same period last year, accounting for 75.4 percent of the country's total imports. Of this total, imports of machinery and electrical products were valued at $160.91 billion, rising 28 percent year on year. At the same time, China bought 87,000 automobiles, soaring 80 percent from a year ago. Imports of rolled steel arrived at 7.74 million tons, a decline of 27.6 percent from a year ago.

Catering

According to a report jointly released by the Department of Commercial Reform and Development under the Ministry of Commerce, the China Cuisine Association and the China National Commercial Information Center, retail sales of China's 100 largest catering enterprises in terms of revenue amounted to 68.12 billion yuan in 2005, up 21.3 percent year on year, accounting for 7.7 percent of the total of the catering sector.

The number of employees in the top 100 catering enterprises was more than 800,000, accounting for 4 percent of the total workforce in this sector. There were 30 new entrants in the list of the top 100 catering enterprises in 2005, while the lowest retail sales among the enterprises rose from 107 million yuan to 156 million yuan, which indicated the rapid development of the Chinese catering sector.

Overall strength of the top 100 catering enterprises improved steadily. The total assets and total profits of the 100 catering enterprises reached 32 billion yuan and 6 billion yuan in 2005, growing 40.3 percent and 28.84 percent, respectively, year on year. Among them, 11 realized retail sales of more than 1 billion yuan, and 34 exceeded 500 million yuan. The combined retail sales of the top 10 hit 33.68 billion yuan, jumping 18.4 percent on a year-on-year basis, accounting for 49.34 percent of the total of the top 100.

Private catering enterprises became more competitive. Among the top 100 enterprises, 80 were private with a total retail sales of 41.9 billion yuan, accounting for 61.5 percent of the total of the 100 making the list. There were 12 state-owned or state-holding enterprises and eight foreign-funded ones, with retail sales of 8.9 billion yuan and 17.33 billion yuan, accounting for 13.06 percent and 25.44 percent of the top 100's total. Private enterprises took a majority share of the market and led in service level.

Hot pot and characteristic restaurants developed steadily and increased by a wide margin. Among the top 100 enterprises, 22 were hot pot restaurants, 47 were characteristic restaurants and 14 were fast food chains. There were seven more hot pot enterprises compared with 2004, 10.04 percentage points higher than the figure in 2004 (see graph 4).

Chain catering enterprises developed very rapidly. Most of the top 100 enterprises exploited the market by means of chain operations. Statistics indicate that there were 11,159 outlets of chain catering enterprises located in all provinces and cities in China.

However, there were big differences in business performance, and the profit rates and added value were low. Among the top 100 catering enterprises, the retail sales of 13 increased by over 50 percent, 14 went up between 30 percent and 50 percent, 19 had growth rates of less than 10 percent and seven saw negative growth. The retail sales of the enterprise topping the list were 13.1 billion yuan more than those of the bottom enterprise. The average retail sales of indigenous restaurants were 1.52 million yuan, while those of the outlets of U.S.-funded Yum Restaurants China were 7.5 million yuan.

Industrial concentration was expected to improve. The proportion of retail sales of the top 100 catering enterprises to the industry's aggregate was less than 8 percent in 2005, but in the United States, the figure was 20 percent.

Air Union

Air Union of Russia opened regular flights from three Russian cities to Beijing on June 14, in order to accommodate tourists and business travelers. With these flights, travelers can continue their trips to European cities from Moscow and to some Chinese, Korean and Japanese cities from Beijing under Air Union's framework agreements with Air China and Hainan Airlines of China.