In 2002 I surpassed Japan for the first time to become Germany's largest trading partner in Asia. According to my customs statistics, the bilateral trade volume between China and Germany in 2009 was 105.73 billion U.S. dollars, affected by the international financial crisis, a year-on-year decline of 8.1%. In 2010, China-Germany bilateral trade amounted to 142.4 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for about 30 percent of my total trade with the European Union, a year-on-year increase of 34.8 percent, of which I exported 68.05 billion U.S. dollars to Germany, a year-on-year increase of 36.3 percent, and imported 74.34 billion U.S. dollars from Germany, a year-on-year increase of 33.4 percent.
I mainly imported from Germany electromechanical equipment, railroads, automobiles and ships and other transportation equipment, chemicals, optics, medical instruments, etc.; to Germany's main exports of electrical appliances, machinery and equipment, textile raw materials and manufactured goods, chemicals and toys, etc.. Germany is the largest European country in terms of technology transfer to China. As of the end of 2010, I have introduced a total of 15,036 technologies from Germany, amounting to 51.39 billion U.S. dollars.