China's Q1 bilateral trade with three major partners fall

BEIJING, May 11 (Xinhua) -- China's bilateral trade with the United States,
the European Union and Japan, its three major trade partners, continued to fall
in the first quarter, the General Administration of Customs said in a report on
Monday.

The bilateral trade volume between China and the U.S. dropped to 62.08
billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter, down 15.7 percent year on year.
Export volume to the U.S. declined to 25.52 billion dollars, falling 14.9
percent from the previous year.

China's trade surplus against the U.S. dropped to 28.96 billion dollars in
the first quarter, down 13 percent year on year.

In March, export to the U.S. contracted for the fifth month in a row to
16.45 billion dollars, but it was the first month-on-month growth since the
fourth quarter last year, according to the report.

The bilateral trade volume between China and the European Union slumped to
75.19 billion dollars, down 19.8 percent year on year. Export to the European
Union fell to 17.21 billion dollars, contracting by 20.2 percent year on year.

Germany, Netherlands and the U.K. ranked the top three among China's
European trade partners, with bilateral trade volume at 21.63 billion dollars,
8.07 billion dollars and 7.7 billion dollars, respectively.

China's trade volume with Japan slumped to 46.07 billion dollars, a drastic
year-on-year decrease of 23.8 percent, which was 4 and 8.1 percentage points
higher than decline of trade with the European Union and the United States.