British Prime Minister Tony Blair's upcoming visit is expected to give another push to rapidly-growing bilateral trade and investment, said experts.

Among European Union countries, Britain is second only to Germany as China's largest trading partner with a record bilateral trade volume of US$11.4 billion last year, according to Chinese customs statistics.

Trade between China and Britain increased 16.3 per cent year-on-year to US$5 billion in the first five months of this year - exports were US$3.6 billion and imports US$1.4 billion.

But Britain's trade deficit with China is not as huge as the data suggests because Britain's export of services, especially financial services, is not included in the data, said Chinese trade experts.

Nonetheless, officials with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade suggested China could import more of Britain's chemical, biological and information-technology products.

Britain has been one of the largest EU investors in China for years.

At the end of last year, Britain has invested US$10.7 billion in 3,406 Chinese projects, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

In the first five months of this year, actual investment in China increased 29.02 per cent year-on-year to US$324 million.

Seeing Chinese companies trying to invest overseas, the British Government started in recent years to attract them to the country through promotion fairs, taking part in trade and investment fairs in China and inviting Chinese companies to visit.

The mainland's exports to Britain grew rapidly since Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 with annual growth of over 15 per cent.

The majority of the products are miscellaneous industrial products, electronic appliances, office machinery, garments, telecommunication equipment, furniture, textiles, shoes and tourist products.

British consumers have started to appreciate Chinese products for their low price and high quality.

The proportion of machinery and electronic products exported to Britain has grown rapidly and is expected to continue to rise in the next few years, according to the business section of the Chinese Embassy in Britain.

(HK Edition 07/19/2003 page7)