DUBLIN — The bilateral trade between China and Ireland has exceeded $10 billion for the first time in history, marking a new level of the trade ties between the two countries, said an official with the Chinese embassy on Feb 16.

The official made the remarks while being asked to comment on the latest statistics released by Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) regarding the bilateral trade figures between China and Ireland in 2017.

According to the figures released by CSO on Feb 15, in 2017 the goods trade volume between China and Ireland shot up 19.72 percent to reach 9.58 billion euros, or an equivalent of $11.44 billion based on the Forex central parity announced by China on the final trading day of last year.

In 2017, China including Hong Kong and Macao exported a total of 4.51 billion euros worth goods to Ireland, up 272 million euros or 6.41 percent compared with 2016 while its goods imports from the latter totaled 5.07 billion euros, up nearly 1.31 billion euros or 34.73 percent over a year ago, with China suffering a trade deficit of 557 million euros against Ireland.

Last year, the goods trade volume between China and Ireland accounted for 4.81 percent of Ireland’s total external trade of goods, which stood at 199.03 billion euros, up 0.68 percentage points from the previous year.

The Chinese embassy official said that the potential of the bilateral trade between China and Ireland remains much to be tapped as the economies of the two countries are quite complementary to each other.

In another development, the Chinese Ambassador to Ireland Yue Xiaoyong told a function marking the Chinese Lunar New Year earlier this week that the investment between China and Ireland also witnessed a rapid growth in 2017 with China’s non-financial direct investment in Ireland totaling $100 million, and Ireland’s investment in China reaching $150 million, 3.5 times higher than that in the previous year.