China unveils record trade surplus

China has unveiled economic figures showing a record trade surplus of forty billion dollars, but has warned that it could soon feel the effects of the financial crisis affecting much of east Asia.

The surplus, which was announced by the State Statistical Bureau, is three times that of the previous year.

But a spokesman Ye Zhen told reporters in Beijing that the recent devaluation of many Asian currencies was likely to weaken China's competitiveness next year.

He also announced slightly lower than expected economic growth for 1997 of eight-point-eight per cent.The BBC correspondent in Beijing says the acknowledgement that indebted state enterprises had lost a further eight billion dollars was a hint of the continuing challenges facing China's economic planners.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service