With ten new member states and a total population of 455 million, the European Union, already China's second largest trade partner before the expansion, is attracting more and more Chinese businesses.

Figures from the Chinese customs showed that the trade volume between China and the ten new EU members registered a 50.2 percent increase in 2003 on a year-on-year basis to US$7.65 billion and the figure rose by 49 percent in the first four months this year to US$3.29 billion.

"We will encourage Chinese enterprises to increase investment and set up factories in the central and east European nations so as to improve bilateral economic and trade ties with the area," an official from the Ministry of Commerce said.

Meanwhile, experts said Chinese President Hu Jintao's upcoming visits to Poland, Hungary and Romania will certainly push forward the bilateral trade cooperation between China and those countries.

The latest EU expansion, which took place on May 1, 2004, admitted ten new members -- Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Among the ten new EU members, Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic are China's major trade partners, taking 80 percent of the total trade volume between China and the ten countries. The trade volume between China and Romania, which is waiting to join the European Union, grew nearly 30 percent in 2003 year-on-year to US$1 billion.

Experts said that with the new expansion of the European Union, the GDP of the bloc is expected to increase from the present US$9 trillion to about 10 trillion dollars, which will certainly provide new business opportunities for European Union's trade partners including China.

In addition, the overall tariff of the new EU members will be reduced from nine percent to four percent, and the investment environment and market demands of the new members will also be further improved.

However, experts warned that the expansion may also bring about new problems to the trade between China and the ten new EU members, including increased tariff on certain products due to the common trade policy within the European Union, and other obstacles like export quota and technical trade barriers.

To minimize problems and expand trade cooperation, officials from the China's Ministry of Commerce said they will take measures to enhance exchanges between the medium and small-sized enterprises of the two sides and the ministry will also ask the European Union to make certain adjustment in line with the regulations of the World Trade Organization.

(Xinhua News Agency June 8, 2004)