China's balance of trade, which had risen sharply during 2004 and into January of this year, has begun to moderate. The April balance was $7,259 million compared to $7,974 in March and the peak of $11,443 reached in January. China's balance of trade in goods is shown in the first chart. Trade balances among countries are not yet available for April. Changes from February to March are shown in the following table. During the month of March, China's balance of trade with the U. S., Japan, Korea and Taiwan improved but deteriorated with the Euro Area it deteriorated.

In spite of the rise in the balance of trade in 2004, the largest yearly balance of trade was reached back in 1998. At that time the balance was $43,476 million compared with $32,868 in 2004. The direction of trade has changed markedly since then. The table below lists the balances of trade with selected areas and countries and the changes between 1998 and 2004. By far the largest change has taken place in the China-US trade, where China's surplus in the balance of trade has increased by $59,358 million from $20,968 million in 1998 to $80,321 million in 2004. The second chart compares China's total balance of trade with that for the United States. Over this period, China also improved its surplus with Europe from $7,085 million to $33, 648 million. Offsetting the increases in surpluses with the U. S. and Europe were the increases in deficits with Asian countries and Latin America. (Note: Data for Latin America were taken from the IMFDOT data base, which has much more country detail than the China data base in EMERGEPR)