Since the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Governments of the two countries have successively signed a series of agreements including the agreement on trade cooperation, the agreements on investment protection, on the establishment of a joint committee on economic, trade and technological cooperation, on marine transportation, on avoiding double-taxation and preventing tax-evasion and on the peaceful use of nuclear powers. The bilateral economic and trade cooperation has achieved a steady, healthy and rapid development.
From 1992 to 1997, the bilateral trade volume has increased annually by a big margin, registering at US$24.036 billion in 1997. Affected by the Asian financial crisis, however, the Sino-ROK trade volume in 1998 decreased to US$21.264 billion. In 1999, the bilateral trade volume rose to US$25 billion. According to Chinese statistics, Sino-ROK trade volume in 2000 was US$34.5 billion, an increase of 38% over the precious year, of which Chinese export was US$11.2 billion and import was US$23.3 billion. Up to the end of 2000, the Chinese side approved 15,395 items of investments by ROK enterprises with a contract value of US$18.672 billion and the actual amount spent was US$10.245 billion.
When the ROK was hit by the financial crisis, China provided it with 3 packages of financial aids totaling US$681.5 million in the framework of the IMF working budget.
