China's trade surplus in first nine months exceeds 2005 annual figure

China's trade surplus in the first nine months amounted to 109.85 billion U.S. dollars, breaking the annual record set last year.

Statistics released Thursday by the General Administration of Customs showed that the trade surplus slipped slightly to 15.3 billion U.S. dollars in September from the monthly record of 18.8 billion U.S. dollars in August.

China's trade surplus totaled 101.88 billion U.S. dollars in 2005.

Statistics show exports in September rose 30.6 percent over the same month of last year to 91.64 billion dollars, and imports increased 22 percent to 76.34 billion dollars.

The aggregated trade volume reached 1.27 trillion dollars in the first three quarters of the year. Exports rose 26.5 percent to 691.2 billion dollars, and imports increased 21.7 percent to 581.4 billion dollars.

Statistics also show that the European Union, the United States, Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations remained the four largest trade partners of China.

Source: Xinhua