China's trade surplus stood at US$7.57 billion in September, the smallest monthly figure since May, said the latest statistics published yesterday by China's General Administration of Customs.

Exports reached US$70.2 billion last month, up 25.9 percent year-on-year, while imports reached US$62.6 billion, up 23.5 percent from the same month last year.

The department said this was the first time that monthly exports exceeded US$70 billion and the pace of import growth was so far the fastest this year.

The monthly trade volume stood at US$132.8 billion, keeping the figure above US$100 billion for the seventh successive month.

The drop of last month's surplus indicated that the monthly surplus in the rest of this year is likely to fall, said Li Yushi, a trade expert with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, a think tank of the commerce ministry.

Demand for imports, in particular imports of materials, declined as the government launched a series of measures to cool its overheating economy, Li explained, adding that product material imports accounted for a large proportion of the country's total imports.

"As investment in some fields is climbing gradually in the second half of this year, China's demand for imports will perhaps increase," he said.

Next year we are not likely to witness such a large trade surplus volume, Li added.

Experts believed that the revaluation of the Chinese currency would do little to ease the increasing trade surplus and suggested boosting domestic demand so as to balance the export growth.

However the total trade surplus is also predicted to reach an historical high this year.

A recently finished report by the Department of Foreign Trade of China's Ministry of Commerce predicted that the country's trade surplus is likely to grow to between US$90 billion and US$100 billion, with the trade volume reaching US$1.4 trillion this year. The prediction was based on statistics from the first eight months of 2005.

The trade surplus from January to September totalled US$68.3 billion, according to the administration.

It also announced that the country has realized a two-way trade of US$1.02 trillion in the first three quarters of this year, reflecting an increase of 23.7 percent over the previous year.

Therefore the country's foreign trade exceeded US$1 trillion this year two months earlier than in 2004.

Exports jumped 31.3 percent year-on-year to US$546.4 billion while imports grew 16 percent yearly to US$478.1 billion.

According to the statistics, general trade grew 21.8 percent to nearly US$436.8 billion in this period while processing trade jumped 26.2 percent to around US$489.4 billion.

The European Union, with a bilateral trade of US$157.8 billion, topped China's trade partners in the first three quarters and was closely followed by the United States, whose trade volume with China totaled US$153.5 billion.

(China Daily October 12, 2005)