‘China trade surplus to decrease further’
March 8th, 2011 - 5:56 pm ICT by ANIBeijing, Mar.8 (ANI): China’s Minister of Commerce Chen Deming has said that the country’s trade surplus will decrease further and may even go into deficit for a few months.
Chen said that the reason is increased imports of high-tech products, green technology, resource-related goods and simplified procedures and tariff cuts on certain items.
He added that grain imports will not rise sharply, to prevent volatility on global markets.
The surplus has declined in recent years. In 2010 it decreased by 6.4 percent, from a year earlier, to 183.1 billion dollars. This followed a 34 percent fall to 196.1 billion dollars in 2009, from a year earlier.
In January, the surplus dropped by 53.5 percent year-on-year to 6.46 billion dollars.
The China Daily quotes Chen as saying: “The surplus will further drop in 2011. While export growth will decelerate, import growth will accelerate”
He added: “The main target this year is to cut the trade surplus through stabilizing exports and expanding imports.”
In January, exports rose 37.7 percent, compared with 51 percent growth for imports. Last year, the surplus-deficit ratio of GDP in the current account was 3.2 percent for China.
Chen said, “It’s hard to say whether the figure will drop to below 3 percent or not, but it will definitely get smaller.”
The US has asked China to appreciate its currency to reduce the trade deficit, but Chen reiterated that reform of the exchange rate will be “gradual” and “controllable”, and said that it’s unreasonable to accuse China of keeping the yuan undervalued.
Chen has said that simpler import related procedures are priority and reduction of import tariffs on some goods will be considered. (ANI)
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Tags: 1 billion dollars, beijing, china daily, china trade, current account, deming, exchange rate, global markets, grain imports, green technology, import growth, import tariffs, minister of commerce, target, tariff cuts, technology resource, trade deficit, trade surplus, volatility, yuan