China's trade surplus with the United States widened in 2017 while total foreign trade volume maintained rapid growth, customs data showed Friday.

 

中国海关统计数据显示，2017年中国对美国贸易顺差扩大，对外贸易总额保持快速增长。

 

Trade surplus with the United States soared 13 percent year on year to 1.87 trillion yuan (about 288 billion U.S. dollars), according to Huang Songping, spokesperson of the General Administration of Customs.

 

China's trade volume with the United States expanded 15.2 percent in 2017 to 3.95 trillion yuan, accounting¹ for 14.2 percent of the total.

 

Exports to the United States climbed 14.5 percent while imports from the country jumped 17.3 percent.

 

In 2017, the United States was China's second largest trade partner and China hopes to deepen economic and trade cooperation with the country to achieve mutual² benefits, Huang said.

 

Huang also noted³ that global protectionism is still on the rise with a high frequency of trade remedy investigations⁴ into Chinese products, which has become one of the uncertainties⁵ facing international trade in 2018.

 

At a press conference Thursday, the Ministry⁶ of Commerce spokesperson Gao Feng said that the trade imbalance between China and the United States is mainly a result of different economic structures, industrial competitiveness and international division of labor⁷, and China has never sought a trade surplus as the flow of trade is determined⁸ by the market.

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