China's trade deficit with ASEAN members continues to go down in 1st 5 months

China's trade with ASEAN members amounted to 95.55 billion U.S. dollars in the first five months of this year, a growth of 26.9 percent over the same period of last year, the General Administration of Customs said on Sunday.

The total included 50.27 billion U.S. dollars in import value, up 22.3 percent, and 45.28 billion dollars in export value, up 32.6 percent. The trade deficit went down 1.96 billion dollars, or28.2 percent, to 4.99 billion dollars.

Trade deficit was mainly recorded in the new- and high-tech sector, which stood at 11.8 billion U.S. dollars in such products, up 4.7 percent.

The five months saw an import of 25.01 billion U.S. dollars worth of new- and high-tech products from ASEAN members, up 16.7 percent, and an export of 13.21 billion dollars worth, up 30 percent.

China's top five trade partners in ASEAN were Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippine. The five accounted for 84.84 U.S. billion dollars, or 88.8 percent, of the total China-ASEAN trade volume.

Most trade fell in the sectors of machinery and electronics. From January to May, The value of machines and electronics traded between China and ASEAN members increased by 27.4 percent to 54.7 billion U.S. dollars, or 57.2 percent of the total.

In the first five months, China bought 2.39 billion U.S. dollars worth of oil products from ASEAN members, up 80.3 percent, and 310 million dollars worth of fruits, up 47.1 percent.