Beijing: China's trade surplus soared to a record USD 262.2 billion last year, up 47.7 per cent jump over the previous year, the General Administration of Customs said.

The trade surplus however eased a little in the fourth quarter in 2007 with imports catching and exports slowing down, the administration said, according to Xinhua news agency.

China's ballooning trade surplus has been a matter of concern for the US and the European Union, who fault Beijing for keeping the value of its currency, Yuan, artificially low giving an unfair advantage to its exporters.

Worried over the trend, China s major trade partners have been exerting more and more pressure on Beijing to let Yuan appreciate quickly but China has said it would do so gradually.

The trade surplus growth was 69.4 per cent for the first three quarters of 2007 as against up to 75 per cent in 2006. In 2007,export rose 25.7 per cent to USD 1.22 trillion and import climbed 20.8 per cent to USD 955.8 billion, it said.

The export growth was 1.5 percentage points lower than in 2006,while the import growth posted a gain of 0.9 percentage points. The December trade surplus was USD 22.69 billion, down 14.2 per cent from the previous month.

The total foreign trade hit a new high of USD 2.1 trillion last year, up 23.5 per cent from 2006,according to the administration.

Source : PTI