Econintersect: China reported a $31.6 billion trade suprlus for December. This 
was more than a 50% increase from the $19.6 billion figure for November. The 
expectation had been for a surplus of $20 billion. Both exports and imports rose in December, but the 14.1% year-over-year increase for exports was more than double the 6% rise in imports, fueling the strengthening current account surplus.
For the entire year China recorded a $231 billion trade surplus, compared to $150 billion for 2011. This reversed three consecutive years of declining trade balances.
The following shows the chart available from Trading Economics at the time this is written, with annotation to show the latest data point.
Click on graphic for interactive updated chart at Trading Economics.
The Asia/Pacific stock markets have been moving up after the trade data was announced. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Tokyo are all up nearly 1% and Shanghai is up by almost 0.5%.
The big moves in Asian Forex trading came with strong advances for the dollar, based on anticipation of central bank meetings later today which overwhelmed reation to the Chinese trade data. The USD gained against the yen (+0.24%), the euro (+0.15%), the Australian dollar (+0.13%) and the pound sterling (+0.11%) as of 12:04 am New York time on 10 January 2013.
Sources:
- National Bureau of Statistics of China (Official government website)
- China trade rebound hints at solid growth (Simon Rabinovitch, Financial Times, 10 January 2013)
- Major World Indices, Asia/Pacific (Yahoo Finance)
- Dollar soars in Asia as trades ponder bank meetings (Investing.com)
