Im/Ex in April:Small Trade Surplus Resurged

On May 10，2010，GeneralAdministration of Customs of the Peole's Republic of China(GAC)released the Profile of China of foreign trade import and export in April and the first four months of this year China returned to a trade surplus in April on strong exports growth after posting its first monthly deficit in almost six years in March ，the General Administration of Customs(GAC)announced.

the statistics from customs show that，the totalimport and export value forApril Amounted to US$238.16 billion up 39.4%.Among the tatal value ，the export value continued to exceed 100 billion USD，amounting to US$119.92 billion，30.5% increase month-on-month after season adjust-

ment，while the import reached US$118.24 billion，49.7%higher than last month.(See Table1)

According to the customs' statistics，the total import and export value for the first four months amounted to US$855.99 billion， 42.7% increasing compared with the same period last year. Among the total value， the export value amounted to US$436.05 billion， up 29.2% year-on-year， while the import US$419.94 billion， sky-rocketed 60.1% year-on-year. And the accumulated trade surplus in the first quarter of the year arrived US$16.11 billion， 78.6% fall year-on-year.

Trading partners

In the first four months of 2010， E.U.， U.S.， and Japan still remain the China's top 3 trading par-tners (See Table 3). In this period， the bilateral trade volume between China and E.U. amounted to US$137.77 billion， up 34.6% year on year. Sino-U.S. bilateral trade value was US$107.18 billion， increa-sed 25% year on year. China's trade volume with Japan in the first quarter accounted for US$88.66 billion， 37.5% increase year on year.

Li Jian， a research fellow with the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce， said China's trade surplus had been falling since the start of the year as a result of faster growth of imports than exports.

\"A shrinking trade surplus or even monthly deficit shows China's imports and exports are more balanced，\" he said.\"This is a sign of the healthy growth of China's foreign trade and will help relieve pressure for the yuan revaluation.\"

Analysts and officials said as both imports and exports maintained steady growth since the beginning of 2010， the falling trade surplus was \"a good sign of more balanced trade situation\" for China.

Zhang Xiaoji， a researcher at the National Development Research Center of the State Council， said investment and consumption has achieved sus-tained and rapid growth after China adopted a massive economic stimulus package in the middle of global financial crisis.

\"The sustained growth of domestic demand helped fuel the country's strong demand for imports，\" Zhang said.

Huang Guohua， director of De-partment of Integrated Statistics of the GAC， expected China's imports volume to maintain strong growth in the coming months as prices of commodities such crude oil and iron ore had rebounded in global markets.

GAC statistics showed China im-ported 210 million tonnes of iron orefrom January to April with an ave-rageimport price of US$100.3 per tonne up 27.2percent year on year.

Price hikes of energy，raw mate-rials，shipping and rising trade protec-tionism and pressure for China to appreciate its currency would pose challenges for China's exporters.accor-ding to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Commerce.

According to the GAC figures for the January-April period， the European Union remained China's largest trade partner， with bilateral trade topping 137.77 billion U.S. dollars， up 34.6 percent year on year.

China also recorded a trade deficit of US$5.87 billion with the ASEAN bloc from January to April， compared with a surplus of US$8.30 million in the same period last year(Notes: All the data referred in the article are based on the statistics from China Customs)