B2 the number 1,000,000,000:
The population of China is over a/one billion.
Cosmetics is a billion-dollar industry.
The government has invested billions of dollars in the project.
› UK old-fashioned 1,000,000,000,000
Note: This number is now called a trillion.billions of sth informal
There were billions of flies everywhere.
More examples
- Japan exported $117 billion in merchandise to the US in 1999.
- 8 billion has been wiped off share prices worldwide.
- In China, the policy of one child per family was introduced to stabilize the country's population at 1.6 billion.
- The Clinton administration last winter assembled the $50 billion emergency bailout package to ease a financial crisis in Mexico.
- The national debt stands at $55 billion.
