By Tom Hancock ,AFP
February 9, 2015, 12:04 am TWN
BEIJING -- China's monthly trade surplus rose 88 percent to reach a record 370 billion yuan (US$59 billion) in January, data showed Sunday, as imports dropped sharply on lower commodity prices and sluggish domestic demand.
Exports from the world's second-largest economy also fell — by 3.2 percent year-on-year — to 1.23 trillion yuan (US$197 billion), the customs administration said on its website.
Imports fell 19.7 percent from a year earlier to 860 billion yuan (US$138 billion), the largest drop in more than five years.
The country's trade surplus, long a source of tensions with its trading partners, rose above a previous all-time monthly high of US$54.5 billion posted in November.
Economists said the figures reflected continued downward pressures on China's economy, which grew at its slowest pace in 24 years last year and is expected to slow further in 2015.
But they also warned that the data may have been affected by short-term factors, such as a crackdown on commodity financing and the later date of China's Lunar New Year holiday this year.
The trade surplus soared 47.2 percent in 2014 to a record US$382.46 billion.
China's huge trade surpluses were long a source of friction with the United States as the workshop of the world pumped out manufactured goods and U.S. debt mounted, but the issue has receded in more recent years.
China's economy grew 7.4 percent in 2014, its weakest for almost a quarter of a century, and slower than the 7.7 percent in 2013.
“China's manufacturing sector is under great pressures as both external and domestic demand remains sluggish,” Li-Gang Liu, Greater China economist for Australian bank ANZ, said in a statement.
“Today's poor trade data could add depreciation pressures on the RMB exchange rate,” he added.
Exports to the EU fell by 4.4 percent year-on-year in January, while imports fell by 6.9 percent, the customs data said.
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