Others News
- Tariff cut to ease trade surplus
Date: 22-Jan-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
THE government will further reduce import tariffs on energy, raw materials and advanced technology in order to ease the country's growing trade surplus, assistant minister of commerce Fu Ziying said.
The rapidly expanding trade surplus is 'threatening the economy with the danger of rebounding investment and rising inflation,'Fu said at an economic conference in Beijing on Saturday.
China aims to narrow the surplus, which jumped 74 percent to a record US$177.5 billion last year, in an effort to adjust economic structure and curb rapid foreign exchange inflow that floods the world's fourth largest economy with liquidity and adds pressure on its currency to rise.
China's exports rose 27 percent and imports gained 20 percent in 2006, according to government data. To slow exports, China in November raised export taxes on oil, steel and nonferrous metals. In the same month, it cut import tariffs for alumina. In September, it cut export incentives for steel and textiles.
The commerce ministry will further cut export rebates, Fu said, without elaborating. It will also adjust tolling policies on companies which import raw materials and then export processed products, he added, without providing further details.
A more flexible currency is helping the government's effort to ease the trade surplus, Fu said. The government has asked the Export and Import Bank of China, a State-owned policy lender, to increase lending to importers, Liang Xiang, assistant president of the bank, told reporters at Saturday's conference.
'As instructed by the Central Government, we've started to provide loans to importers since 2006 as part of the effort to help narrow China's trading gap,'Liang said. The government may allow the lender to provide import loans with lower interest rates in the future to help expand the business, she added.
China was the world's third-largest trading country last year, trailing Germany and the United States, according to statistics. China may overtake Germany this year if trade continues to grow at 20 percent or more annually, vice commerce minister Gao Hucheng said Thursday in Beijing.
Total imports and exports expanded 23.8 percent last year to US$1.76 trillion. The country's trade is likely to maintain a surplus until the middle of this century, Gao said.
China's total trade is expected to be more than US$2 trillion this year, rising about 15 percent from a year ago, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing commerce minister Bo Xilai.
Sponsor Results:
