China's foreign trade rose 20.8 percent year-on-year to US$120.8 billion in July, keeping the figure above the US$100 billion mark for the fifth month in a row, according to figures published by the General Administration of Customs yesterday.

Exports hit US$65.6 billion, up 28.7 percent year-on-year, while imports stood at US$55.2 billion, up 12.7 percent. Trade surplus for the month amounted to US$10.4 billion.

In the first seven months, trade volume totaled US$765.9 billion, reflecting a yearly increase of 22.8 percent.

Cumulative trade surplus from January to July rose to US$50 billion, far exceeding the US$32 billion surplus for all of 2004.

Although the widening trade surplus is intensifying concerns among China's trade partners, economists predicted that the figure is likely to fall in the second half of the year.

Lu Jinyong, from the University of International Business and Economics, said that a decline in trade surplus would result from the revaluation of the renminbi, which should encourage imports.

However, the 2 percent appreciation of China's currency, announced last month, is not expected to affect figures for a couple of months.

Chinese textile exporters have already hit the limits of several US and EU quotas, another factor expected to affect exports in the following months.

"The growth rate of exports should decrease and the gap between import and export growth will narrow in the second half of the year," the State Information Center predicted in a recent report.

The slowdown in the world economy and decline in foreign direct investment to China this year will also have a negative effect on exports, the center said.?

(China Daily August 12, 2005)