China's trade surplus drops sharply to $8.55 bln in February

China's trade surplus shrank to 8.555 billion U.S. dollars in February, roughly one third of the level in the same month last year, the General Administration of Customs said on Monday.

Analysts said the unprecedented snow disaster that hit much of southern China in February was partly blamed for the shrinking trade surplus.

The figure is about half of the January figure of 19.49 billion U.S. dollars after the trade gap has been falling for a straight four months since last October.

In February, imports surged by 35.1 percent to 78.81 billion U.S. dollars while exports rose merely 6.5 percent to 87.37 U.S. billion dollars.

The country's trade volume in February reached 166.181 billion U.S. dollars, 18.4 percent up from a year earlier, according to the administration.

Source:Xinhua