China's trade surplus reached 177.47 billion US dollars in 2006, the General Administration of Customs said Wednesday.

Exports rose 27.2 percent from the previous year to 969.08 billion dollars, while imports were up 20 percent to 791.61 billion dollars.

The December surplus stood at 21 billion US dollars, a slight decline from November's 22.9 billion dollars.

Monthly imports for December were 73.1 billion US dollars, up 13.5 percent on the same month of 2005 while exports stood at 94.1 billion US dollars, up 24.8 percent.

China's exports and imports in 2006 reached 1.76 trillion US dollars, 338.78 billion US dollars more than that in 2005, a year-on-year growth of 23.8 percent. Export growth was 1.2 percentage points down from 2005 while and imports were 2.4 percentage points up.

The trade figures for 2006 are higher than the Ministry of Commerce projection, which forecast the aggregate trade surplus would be 168 billion US dollars.

Seven countries or regions had bilateral trade volume with China of over 100 billion US dollars in 2006, with China's top three trading partners, the European Union, the United States and Japan over 200 billion US dollars.

Taiwan for the first time saw its trade with China's mainland surpass 100 billion US dollars to 107.84 billion US dollars, with a trade surplus in favor of the mainland of 66.38 billion US dollars.

Electronic and machinery products remained the top export items in 2006, rising by 28.8 percent to 549.44 billion US dollars

Exports of clothing for the whole of 2006 reached 95.19 billion US dollars, up 28.9 percent year-on-year. Exports of textile products rose by 18.7 percent to 48.8 billion US dollars.

China exported 43.01 million tons of steel in 2006, up 110 percent from the year before.
China's imports of primary products rose 26.7 percent to 187.14 billion US dollars in 2006, including 326 million tons of iron ore, up 18.6 percent from 2005.

Steel imports dropped 28.3 percent to 18.51 million tons while autos were up 40.7 percent to 229,000 units.

Customs experts estimate that China's trade volume will surpass 2 trillion US dollars in 2007.

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