China-US trade surplus '$53.2bn'

US industry is angry at the trade imbalance

China says its trade surplus with the US was only $53.2bn(£29.7bn) for the first 11 months of 2003, according to new official figures.

The trade imbalance is smaller than official US estimates that 2003 will show a record shortfall of $120bn.

Trade volume with the US rose 29.3% year-on-year to $113.8bn in the period, according to China customs data quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency.

It puts the US as China's second largest trade partner after Japan.

Textiles row

The US and China calculate trade figures differently, providing one explanation for the discrepancy in their two-way trade totals.

Chinese customs officials count only direct exports to the US, whereas the US Commerce Department includes goods shipped via Hong Kong if they were substantially manufactured in China.

Exports from China to the US grew 31.8% year-on-year to $83.4bn, outpacing a 22.9% rise in imports to $30.3bn, Chinese General Administration of Customs figures show.

The US has struggled to reduce its trade imbalance over the past year.

Several members of the Bush Administration have hinted that the Chinese yuan is being kept artificially low to boost Chinese exports.

Lawmakers and businessmen have blamed China - and what Washington says is a projected $120bn trade surplus with the US during 2003 - for job losses, including a claimed 300,000 in textiles in the past two years.

These concerns influenced the US government's decision to limit Chinese export growth to 7.5% a year, capping in particular imports of dressing gowns and robes, knitted fabrics and bras.

High-technology

China has been attempting to counter worries about the trade gap with two recent Buy American missions to the US to purchase commodities and manufactured goods including jet aircraft and car fleets.

But intense political pressure in the run-up to this year's US presidential election in November has sparked the trade rows over Chinese textiles, and also over televisions.

China would like the US to allow it to import more high-technology, but that is still blocked.

In December China forecast its trade surplus with the rest of the world would be halved this year to about $15bn.