China recorded a deficit of US$117.3 billion in its financial and capital account last year, the highest such figure since records began in 1982, Bloomberg reported. The gap was the first since 1998, when investors avoided China during the Asian financial crisis, and contrasted with a surplus of US$221.1 billion in 2011. The country’s current account surplus rose to US$213.8 billion in 2012, up from US$201.7 billion the year before. Economists attributed the deficit to reduced intervention by the central bank to control the exchange rate of the yuan, which strengthened 1% against the US dollar in 2012.
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