Mofcom: China's foreign trade surplus continues to decline

Xinhua Beijing, April 27, the Ministry of Commerce released today, "China's foreign Trade Situation Report (Spring 2010)", reviewed the 2009 China's foreign trade operation, analysis of the 2010-year Chinese foreign trade growth characteristics.　　The report believes that this year, the world economy continued to recover, the domestic economic recovery to a better momentum of consolidation, the policy effects further revealed that China's foreign trade continued to the end of last year's recovery growth trend, a large rebound, the surplus continued to decline and in March deficit. The report said that with the rebound in international market demand and increased domestic demand, total imports and exports reached 617.85 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter, up 44.1% from a year earlier. Exports of 316.17 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 28.7%, compared with the same period in 2008 3.3%, imports of 301.68 billion U.S. dollars, growth of 64.6%, the highest quarterly growth rate of record. March Month import and export total of 231.46 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 42.8%.　　Exports of 112.11 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 24.3%, imports of 119.35 billion U.S. dollars, growth of 66%. The report shows that the size of China's surplus this year has continued to decline sharply since last October, as imports grew more rapidly than exports. The first quarter, the surplus of 14.49 billion U.S. dollars, down 76.7%, of which the month of March deficit of 7.24 billion U.S. dollars, the end of the successive 70-month surplus since May 2004 situation.　　The main reason is that internal and external need to revive the different steps, domestic demand rebound faster than external demand, import prices rose higher than export prices rebound, leading to import growth rate higher than exports. In addition, the report also mentioned that the first quarter of China's major commodity imports and exports to achieve sustained growth, processing trade exports increased proportion of private enterprises import high-speed growth.