GUANGZHOU: Affected by international price hikes, Guangdong Province, China's biggest foreign trader, has reduced imports of steels, crude oil and finished oil in the past year.

The southern Chinese province purchased 9.65 million tons of steel, 11.31 million tons of crude oil and 10.93 million tons of finished oil from the rest of the world.

This was a year-on-year reduction of 4.8 per cent for steel, 18.5 per cent for crude oil and 21.3 per cent for finished oil, according to statistics released by Guangdong Customs yesterday.

But Guangdong's steel, crude oil and finished oil purchases amounted to US$7.6 billion, US$4.23 billion and US$3.2 billion, up year-on-year 16.4 per cent, 14.9 per cent and 6.9 per cent respectively.

Despite the international price's energy price hike and the growing number of trade conflicts, Guangdong still reached a record high of foreign trade volume last year.

The province reached a total import and export volume of US$427.98 billion in 2005, up year-on-year 19.8 per cent and representing more than 30.1 per cent of the country's total, Wu Sihai, an official from Guangdong Customs told China Daily yesterday.

The province's exports stood at US$189.82 billion, while exports hit US$238.16 billion, up year-on-year 14.7 per cent and 24.3 per cent respectively.

Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, reached a foreign trade surplus of US$48.34 billion, up US$22.35 billion, or year-on-year 86 per cent.

Editor: Yan