(These statistics have been taken from different articles published in newspapers) 

• Foreign direct investment into China last year rose to $53.5 billion.

• Asian foreign exchange reserves rose by a third in 2003 to a record $1.9 trillion.

• Britain's trade deficit widened to 4.4 billion pounds in November 2003.

• Traffic accidents in Pakistan claimed 45,000 lives in 90,000 road accidents during last 9 years.

• Customs and excise collections in India during the first nine months of the current fiscal increased by 9.3% to Rs 993 billion.

• Mercedes-Benz will recall 33000 potentially faulty sedans sold globally.

• The intra-Saarc trade is 3.8% of the region's total trade. The trade between India and Pakistan, through official channels, is $200 million a year.

• Nearly 290 regional trade agreements have been notified to GATT/WTO. Of these, more than 190 are estimated to be in force.

• The number of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) increased five-fold in the 1990s from 385 in 1989 to 1,857 at the end of 1999. By 2002 there were an estimated 2200 BITs in operation.

• The volume of worldwide trade in textiles is worth $500 billion.

• Bangladesh's garment industry contributes 80% of the hard-currency earnings and employs 1.8 million workers, 85% of whom are women.

• The world population at the end of the current century would be 10 billion.

• More than 400 million people in South Asia live below poverty line, 300 million of them in India alone.

• In Pakistan, people are now getting around 350,000 telephones every year.

• The number of mobile phone users in Pakistan is estimated at 2.8 million.

• In four decades, world textiles increased more than 60 times from less than $6 billion in 1962 to $342 billion in 2001 (in nominal terms).

• China's foreign exchange reserve stood at $403 at the end of 2003.

• Airbus will deliver more than 30 civilian aircraft to China in 2004.

• The number of Internet users in China reached 79.5 million by the end of 2003.

• In 2003, China produced 4.44m vehicles and sold out 4.37m.