China will become the second largest exporter this year

China will replace Germany this year as the second largest exporter in the world and could take the world leader detained by the United States by 2010 says a leading Chinese scientist.

“China maintained a growth rate of exports over 20 per cent in the first quarter of this year and should keep this pace all year,” said Li Yushi, vice president of the Institute Search International Cooperation Trade and Economic Ministry of Commerce.

Despite a growth rate that declined to 6.9 percent in March, foreign trade in the first quarter totaled 457.7 billion dollars, an increase of 23.3 percent per year.

The export outside it reached 252.1 billion dollars, an increase of 27.8 percent, while imports were valued at 205.7 billion dollars, an increase of 18.2 percent, according statistics issued by China Customs.

While the Ministry of Commerce predicted that the trade would increase by 10 per cent per year between 2006 and 2010, the institute Li Yushi predicted that the growth rate will be between 12 and 15 per cent.

“Based on these estimates, we can say that China is stealing the place of world’s largest exporter to the United States in 2010, said Li at a seminar on the prospects of China’s foreign trade in Guangzhou.

China started to lower taxes on numerous items last September to help reduce its trade surplus, said Li The Government is also developing policies to increase imports by encouraging Chinese companies to import equipment latest technologies and cries it is sorely lacking. “

Chinese exports, with strong increases in 2006, raised its trade surplus at record $ 178 billion dollars, a growth of 74 percent over the previous record of 102 billion U.S. $ in 2005.

trade surplus of China in the first two months of the year reached 39.6 billion U.S. dollars, higher than the first quarter of last year.

In March, however, the trade surplus fell to 6.87 billion U.S. dollars, dipping for the first time below 10 billion dollars in March 2006.

The World Trade Organization said in a report last year that exports of Chinese goods began to exceed those of the United States in the second half of 2006, but statistics on the entire year show that China ranked third in exports, after Germany and the United States.