Growth slowed down in China's foreign sales of prefabricated housing in the first half of this year, due largely to the severe winter weather at the year's beginning and disaster relief upon the major earthquake that claimed more than 87,000 lives on May 12 in southwest province of Sichuan.

The General Administration of Customs said on Saturday that between January and June, China exported US$690 million worth of makeshift homes, a growth of 43.8 percent on the same period of last year. The growth rate was 33.7 percentage points lower than the year-earlier level.

Halted by the severe winter weather, prefabricated housing exports only increased by 9.8 percent in February. In May and June, the growth rates for the exports were 1.2 percentage points and 7.9 percentage points, respectively, lower than the year-earlier level, according to the customs data.

The European Union, Russia and the United States were the top three target markets of China's makeshift homes.

From January and June, China exported US$230 million worth of prefabricated housing to the European Union, up 30.2 percent, 67.43 million dollars worth to Russia, up 60.5 percent, and US$45.96 million worth to the United States, down 7.5 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2008)