Dear friends from the media, good morning! Welcome to today's Press Conference. I’ m happy to introduce you the commercial performance of January and February 2014, and take the questions of your concern.

I. Commercial Performance in Domestic Market

According to National Bureau of Statistics, in January-February 2014, retail sales of consumer goods were 4.2281 trillion yuan, up by 11.8% year on year, 0.5 percentage point slower than that of the previous year, and an actual growth of 10.8% with the price fluctuation excluded, 0.4 percentage point higher than that of the previous year. In general, consumer market saw a steady beginning in 2014. The main features of consumer market in January-February are as follows:

1. Consumer demands for communication and automobile speeded up. According to NBS, among the enterprises above designated size, the retail sales of automobile were up by 11.5% year on year, 4.6 percentage points higher than that of the same period of last year, and the retail sales of communication equipment increased by 2.5 percentage points. In the 5,000 key enterprises monitored by MOFCOM, the growth rate of sales of communication equipment was 0.7 percentage point higher than that of the same period of last year, among that, the sales of 3G mobile phones were up by 18.3%.

2. Catering consumption picked up. In the first two months, catering revenue was up by 9.6%, 1.2 percentage points higher than that of the same period of last year, among that, the revenue of catering enterprises above designated size was down by 0.5% year on year, 2.8 percentage points slower than that of the same period of last year.

3. Sales of large and medium size circulation enterprises slowed down. According to NBS, in January-February, sales of consumer goods of enterprises above designated size were up by 9.5%, 0.7 percentage point slower than that of the same period of last year, and 2.3 percentage points slower than the national average. The sales of 5,000 key retail enterprises monitored by MOFCOM were up by 5.4%, 2.5 percentage points slower than that of the same period of last year, among that, the sales of department stores were up by 3.2%, and those of the special stores were up by 6.1%, 4.8 and 1 percentage point slower than that of the same period of last year respectively.

4. Consumer prices saw a little fell. Consumer price in January-February was up by 2.2%, among that, consumer price in February was up by 2%, 0.5 percentage point slower than that of January. According to monitoring by MOFCOM, in 36 medium and large sized cities, price of agro-foodstuff in February was up by 0.3%. Among that, prices of milk, beef and mutton were up by 10.2%, 8.7% and 8.5% respectively; prices of pork, aquatic product, soy-bean oil and egg were down by 16.4%, 6.2%, 5.1% and 4.2% respectively.

II. Foreign Trade

According to Customs, China’s total import and export in January-February 2014 were RMB 3.87 trillion, going up by 0.9% on a year-on-year basis (the same below). Among that, exports amounted to RMB1.96 trillion, a decrease of 4.3%; imports amounted to RMB1.91 trillion, a growth of 7%. Trade surplus was RMB 55.06 billion, a decrease of 79.5%.

In USD terms, in January-February, the total import and export were USD 633.57 billion, going up by 3.8%. Among that, export was USD 321.23 billion, down by 1.6% and import was USD 312.34 billion, increasing by 10%. Trade surplus was USD 8.89 billion, going down by 79.1%. The main features of foreign trade in January-February are listed as follows:

1. Trade with the EU, the U.S. and Japan maintained good momentum. In January-February, China-EU, China-U.S., and China-Japan trade rose by 6.3%, 4.8% and 2.9% respectively, and China-ASESN trade was up by 4%; over the same period, Mainland-Hong Kong trade decreased by 23.6%.

2. Export by middle and western China grew rapidly. In January-February, the export and import of 11 provinces and cities in eastern China decreased by 0.9%. Among that, the export and import of 7 eastern provinces and cities including Guangdong and Jiangsu took up 77.5% of the total export and import, with a proportion decreasing by 2.2 percentage points. Over the same period, import and export of 8 middle provinces decreased by 0.8%, while those of 12 western provinces, districts and cities were up by 29.7%. In terms of export, the growth rate of Sichuan, Chongqing, Jiangxi and Guangxi was respectively 24.8%, 31.5%, 23.5% and 53%, obviously over the overall growth rate.

3. The proportion of general trade was up and that of processing trade was down. In January-February, import and export by general trade were RMB 2.17 trillion, going up by 8.6%, accounting for 56% of China’s total volume of export and import in the same period, 4 percentage points higher than the previous year. Import and export by processing trade were RMB 1.2 trillion, a decrease of 4.7%or 31.3% in proportion.

4. Exports of mechanical and electronic products saw a decrease, and the growth rate of traditional labor-intensive products was lower than the average. In January-February, the exports of mechanical and electronic products registered RMB 1.1 trillion, going down by 5.7% or 56.6% of China's total exports over the same period. Over the same period, total export of textiles, clothing, bags & suitcases, footwear, toys, furniture and plastic products decreased by 6.4% to RMB 409.16 billion.

5. Import volume of some major bulk commodities increased while the price decreased. Import volumes of copper not forged, soybean, copper ore, primary shape plastic, iron ore, crude oil and coal were respectively up by 41.2%, 40.1%, 25.3%, 22.6%, 21.8%, 11.5% and 9%, while their prices were down respectively by 10.7%, 11%, 11.1%, 0.5%, 4%, 3.8% and 13.9%. Besides, import of mechanical and electrical products was RMB733.96 billion, down by 0.9%.

III. Foreign Investment in China

From January to February 2014, a total of 2,764 foreign-invested enterprises were newly approved, down by 5.18% year on year; utilized FDI reached USD 19.31 billion (equivalent to RMB 119.057 billion), up by 10.44% year on year (excluding data of banking, securities and insurance). The main features of foreign investment in January-February are as follows:

1. Utilized FDI in service sector maintained a growth, and that of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery saw a relative fast growth. From January to February 2014, utilized FDI in service sector registered USD 10.606 billion, up by 25.54% year on year, accounting for 54.9% of the national total; of which utilized FDI in transportation services industry and IT application were USD 646 million and 597 million respectively, up by 16.68% and 70.27% respectively. Utilized FDI in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery amounted to USD 262 million, up by 47.85% year on year, accounting for 1.35% of the national total. Utilized FDI in manufacturing sector was USD 7.019 billion, down by 6.06% year on year, accounting for 36.3% of the national total, of which utilized FDI in electronic equipment manufacturing including communications equipment and computers were USD 1.237 billion, up by 38.23%, and those of chemical materials and chemical products manufacturing and general equipment manufacturing were USD 534 million and USD 594 million respectively, down by 41.12% and 10.73% respectively.

2. FDI by ten countries/regions in Asia and the U.S. grew fast. From January to February 2014, utilized FDI from ten countries/regions in Asia (Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and ROK) amounted to USD 16.937 billion, up by 11.58% year on year; of which utilized FDI from Hong Kong reached USD 13.315 billion, up by 17.63% year on year; that from ROK, USD 834 million, up by 223.62% year on year. Utilized FDI from the U.S. amounted to USD 711 million, up by 43.26% year on year, and that from 28 EU countries reached USD 1.046 billion, down by 13.82% year on year.

3. Utilized FDI in Central and Western China maintained a relatively fast growth, and the proportion in national total increased. In January-February 2014, utilized FDI in Eastern China was USD 15.304 billion, up by 2.63% year on year; utilized FDI in Central China was USD 2.619 billion, up by 75.02% year on year; and utilized FDI in Western China was USD 1.387 billion, up by 28.98% year on year. In January-February 2014, utilized FDI in Central China, Eastern China and Western China accounted for 79.26%, 13.56% and 7.18% of the national total respectively, and those of Central and Western China were over 20%, and maintained a growth momentum compared with that of 2013.

IV. China’s Investment and Economic Cooperation Overseas

Direct investment overseas. From January to February 2014, Chinese investors made direct investment in 1,393 overseas companies in 135 countries and regions, and total direct investment in non-financial sectors (the same below) reached USD 11.54 billion (equivalent to RMB70.54 billion), down by 37.2% year on year. By the end of February 2014, China’s non-financial direct investment overseas reached USD 537.2 billion (equivalent to RMB 3.2838 trillion).

In Jjanuary-February, Chinese investment in seven main economies of Hong Kong, China, ASEAN, the EU, Australia, the U.S., Russia, and Japan reached USD7.55 billion, taking up 65.4% of China’s total overseas direct investments over the same period of time. Among that, iInvestment in Hong Kong, China, EU, and ASEAN decreased by 62.9%, 11.6% and 2.2% respectively; investment in the U.S. and Australia maintained a momentum of rapid growth, rising up by 45.6% and 31% respectively; investment in Russia and Japan saw a double growth.

In January-February, 2014, Chinese overseas direct investment made by local governments reached USD6.44 billion, growing by 89.4% on a year-on-year basis, taking up 55.8% of the national total over the same period. Beijing, Guangdong province, Shandong province, Jiangsu province, and Zhejiang province took the lead.

Contracted projects overseas. In January-February, the turnover of China’s contracted projects overseas amounted to USD 15.9 billion, going up by 21.9% on a year-on-year basis; the value of newly-signed contracts was USD20.86 billion, going up by 3.1% on a year-on-year basis. The projects each with a contract value of above USD50 million were 72 (91 over the same period of last year) with a total contract value of USD16.9 billion, taking up 81% of the total value of newly-signed contracts. Among that, the projects each with a contract value of above USD100 million were 41, 8 less than that over the same period of last year.
As at the end of February, the contract value of China’s contracted projects overseas totaled USD1.1907 trillion, with a turnover of USD808.6 billion.

Foreign labor cooperation. In January-February, 2014, the labor service personnel dispatched overseas by China reached 63,000, an increase of 6,000 over the same period of last year. Among that, labor service personnel dispatched for contracted projects were 27,000 and that those for labor cooperation projects were 36,000. As at the end of JanuaryFebruary, all labor service personnel dispatched overseas were 883887,000, which were 6468,000 more than that those over the same period of 2013. As at the end of February, labor service personnel dispatched overseas for labor cooperation totaled 6.98 million.

[Shen Danyang] V. Service Outsourcing

V. Service Outsourcing

According to the statistics by the Department of Service Trade and Commercial Services of MOFCOM, in January-February, 2014, the contracts on service outsourcing totaled 23,784, with a contract value of USD15.81 billion, going up by 75.5% on a year-on-year basis; the value of contracts executed reached USD10.43 billion, going up by 51.3% on a year-on-year basis. Among that, the total value of contracts with clients overseas reached US$D9.77 billion, up by 48.7% year- on- year; realized value amounted to US$D7 billion, up by 42.7% year- on- year.

ITO service took the lead. In January-February, 2014, information technology outsourcing (ITO), knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) accounted for 59.3%, 26.9% and 13.8% of China’s total service outsourcing respectively, of which TIO ITO took the lead. The knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) like pharmaceutical and biotechnology R&D and testing, industrial design and project design grew rapidly.

Major markets of service outsourcing were the U.S., the EU, Hong Kong, China and Japan. In January-February, the executed contract value in service outsourcing from the U.S., the EU, Hong Kong, China and Japan were US$D2 billion, US$D1.06 billion, US$D890 million and US$D610 million, accounting for 28.5%, 15.1%, 12.7% and 8.7% respectively in of the total contract value.

Jobs in service outsourcing steadily increased. In January-February 2014, newly increased employees in service outsourcing sector reached 75,000. As of the end of February, 2014, enterprises in service outsourcing sector totaled 25,130 with 5,436,000 employees, including 3,622,000 undergraduates and graduates from college, accounting for 66.6% of the total. (10:34:05 March 18, 2014)