The Ministry of Commerce will take further steps to rein in surging trade surplus this year, said Bo Xilai, minister of commerce.

Many policies are being mulled, Bo said, but failed to provide further details.

China's surging trade surplus was led by unbalanced structure of export, but the trade balance was in a normal scope, Bo was quoted as saying by China Securities Journal.

Bo said, "We have noticed that China's trade surplus was high last year, so we have set it a target to maintain a balance between international income and expenses, and pursue a balance in international trade."

However, Bo said, trade surplus has been a target every trade partner pursues.

In terms of trade balance, China's trade surplus only accounted for 10 percent of the country's total imports and exports, Bao said. "Generally speaking, the trade surplus is within normal scope."

If unbalanced trade means the proportion of trade surplus to the total trade volume is higher than 10 percent, it is known that Germany and Japan have reported a ratio higher than 10 percent for more than 10 years, Bo said.

China's trade surplus surged by 74 percent year-on-year to reach US$177.47 billion last year. In January this year, China's trade surplus was US$15.9 billion, lower than the US$21 billion for December of 2006 but still moving up by over 60 percent year-on-year.

Experts said that China's increasing trade surplus reflected the imbalance between the country's excess economic capacity and lower domestic demand. Some others said the fact that processing trade makes up 50 percent of China's total trade and foreign-funded enterprises are the major exporters, which also contributed to surging trade surplus.

To reduce the hefty trade imbalance, Premier Wen Jiabao called for efforts to optimize mix of imports and exports, and re-balance pattern of trade growth.

To ease trade imbalance, measures should be taken to expand imports, said Mei Xinyu, a research fellow with the International Trade and Economic Cooperation Research Institute under the Ministry of Commerce.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2007)