U.S.- China trade shows ongoing improvement

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Xinhua, Beijing :
Trade between the world’s two largest economies has shown signs of improvement as the U.S. trade deficit with China, a long-term U.S. concern, narrowed significantly in October.
In October, U.S. exports to China reached a three-year high of 13 billion U.S. dollars, contributing to the month’s 4.2 percent decrease in the trade deficit with China, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
The U.S. overall trade gap for the month grew 17.8 percent, the biggest increase since March 2015, to 42.6 billion dollars from the surprisingly low September deficit, data from the department showed.
China’s measures to promote steady economic growth have contributed to the growing consumer appetite for U.S. imported goods, said Bai Ming, researcher with an institution affiliated with the Ministry of Commerce.
Chinese figures show that the nation’s trade surplus with the U.S. has been growing since 2000, reaching 42.1 billion dollars in 2002 and surpassing 200 billion dollars in the January-November period of this year.
The growth has slowed in recent years, with just a 0.9 percent year-on-year increase in the first eleven months of this year, largely due to improvement of the trade balance between the two countries, experts have said.
With the transfer of processing trade, the main source of trade surplus between China and the United States, to other regions such as Southeast Asia, the trade gap between the two countries has narrowed in recent years, said Zhang Yansheng, head researcher with the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.
Customs data show that China has been the world’s second largest importer for seven consecutive years, with its imports standing at 1.68 trillion dollars in 2015.
The nation’s total imports are expected to reach 8 trillion U.S. dollars in the next five years.
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