China's trade surplus amounted to $39.61 billion in January and February, more than double the figure of the same period last year.

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The strong surplus growth momentum is a result of China's continued foreign trade expansion since the second half of last year, when its exports picked up while its imports remained stable.

Statistics show that China's exports of highly competitive industrial products, such as textiles, shoes, furniture and steel, have been strong. Exports to its major trade partners outpaced last year.

Given the growth momentum, it would not be surprising if China's trade surplus exceeds $250 billion this year.

Apart from the factor of hot money, or inflow of speculative capital under the current account, there are new reasons for China's soaring trade surplus.

Since its accession into the World Trade Organization, China has steadily improved its competitiveness in trade. Since 2002, its annual trade growth has averaged 28 percent while its export growth averaged 29 percent, both about 10 percentage points higher than the average rate of the past 30 years.

The expanding investment in recent years, on the other hand, has jazzed up China's production, serving as a powerful engine for its exports.

China has been dampening investment recently. At the same time, the country is manufacturing more of its own high-tech, mechanical and electrical equipment used in the production of exports.

This has, naturally, led to a slowdown in some equipment imports.

Despite this, although China has taken a series of measures to control its export growth momentum and encourage imports of high value-added and resource-consuming products, its exports have kept growing faster than imports.

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