II. Economic and Trade Cooperation

Although small in size, the Sino-Irish bilateral trade volume has been growing very fast. Statistics from China's General Administration of Customs show that when the two countries established diplomatic relations, the trade volume was only US$6.90 million. Sino-Irish trade reached US$ 714 million in 2000, an increase of 70.0% over the previous year, of which China's export was US$ 336 million and import was US$ 377 million , increasing 58.3% and 82.1% respectively than that of the previous year. Ireland invested in a total of 34 projects in China by August 2000, with pledged investment of US$ 89.30 million and real input of US$ 19.28 million . China mainly exports to Ireland converter, spare parts of household appliances and radio communication equipments, clothes, medicine, ships, etc. China imports from Ireland refrigeration equipments, medicine, wool, spare parts of internal-combustion engine,major parts of integrated circuit and microelectronic products , etc. Until now, six sessions of the China-Ireland Joint Commission on Economic, Industrial, Scientific and Technological Cooperation have been held according to the Agreement between the Government of Ireland and the Government of the People's Republic of China on Economic, Industrial, Scientific and Technological Cooperation signed in 1986. The Irish Trade Board ( now Enterprise Ireland ) set up an office in Shanghai in early 1998.The two countries signed "Agreement on Civil Transport "in September, 1998,"Agreement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation "in April,2000 and "Agreement on Scientific and Technological Cooperation" in September, 2000.