Preliminary estimates released by China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) indicated that the current-account surplus dropped to US$284.1 billion last year, compared with US$426.1 billion in 2008.
“This is the first outright decline in the current-account balance, the broadest measure of the China's trade surplus, since 2001,” the Wall Street Journal said.
“However some economists think China's current-account surplus could start to rise again this year—and its mirror image, the US current-account deficit, has already expanded in recent months.”
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires said that they expected a sharp acceleration in China’s import and export data for January due to a recovery in global demand.
Source: Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires
