HANOI, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- China and Vietnam have seen stable growth in bilateral trade in 2016 with substantial increase in exports from Vietnam to China, which made Vietnam the largest trade partner of China in ASEAN.
According to the Chinese statistics, bilateral trade between China and Vietnam increased 1.6 percent on year to 87.84 billion U.S. dollars in the first 11 months of 2016.
The growth is a big achievement in China-Vietnam trade amid global gloomy economy and sharp decline in bilateral trade between China and its major trade partners in ASEAN, said Hu Suojin, commercial counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam.
In January-November of 2016, exports from Vietnam to China valued 32.96 billion U.S. dollars, up 20.8 percent on year, and the trade deficit of Vietnam thus dropped 31 percent year on year, indicating a more stable and healthier trade relationship between China and Vietnam, said Hu.
Meanwhile, China's investment in Vietnam saw a sharp increase of 112.7 percent on year to 1.32 billion U.S. dollars in January-November of 2016, making China ranking No.4 among all 68 countries and regions investing in Vietnam. So far, China has invested 10.14 billion U.S. dollars in 1,529 projects in Vietnam.
What's worth noting is that the launching of many Chinese high-tech projects in Vietnam has promoted economic cooperation between the two countries to a higher level. A Chinese-funded PV project with investment of 100 million U.S. dollars and a solar cell module project invested by Trinasolar with 100 million U.S. dollars for the first phase has been operational in Bac Kan province, North Vietnam. JA Solar's solar cell module project with investment of 280 million U.S. dollars for the first phase has also been located in Bac Kan.
In September of 2016, the two countries inked an agreement on China-Vietnam border trade to further normalize border trading behavior and improve trading procedures.
In 2017, China and Vietnam would carry out more measures to push ahead bilateral trade in terms of strategic interworking between the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and Vietnam's "Two Corridors and One Ring" development plan, construction of China-Vietnam cross-border economic cooperation zone, cultivation of key industrial cooperation platform, and human resource training, said Hu. Enditem (Edited by Li Xiaohui, lixh@xinhua.org)
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