By Xinhua
Beijing : China’s trade surplus increased by 47.7 percent over the previous year to reach a record $262.2 billion in 2007, the General Administration of Customs said Friday.
It also said that total foreign trade hit a new high of $2.17 trillion last year, up 23.5 percent from a year earlier.
In 2007, exports rose 25.7 percent to $1.22 trillion, and imports climbed 20.8 percent to $955.8 billion, the administration said.
The export growth was 1.5 percent lower than in 2006, while the import growth posted a gain of 0.9 percent.
The administration added that the trade surplus eased a bit in the fourth quarter last year, with imports catching up and exports slowing down.
A report of the China Customs Statistics said the country’s foreign trade registered a downward trend in October as the country’s efforts to curb exports paid off.
The US remained China’s second largest trading partner with the bilateral trade volume standing at $302.08 billion last year, up 15 percent compared with the same period in 2006, according to the customs administration.
The European Union (EU) was still the largest trading partner, and Japan the third largest. Trade with the EU rose 27 percent year-on-year to $356.15 billion, and that with Japan reached $236.02 billion, up 13.9 percent.