July trade surplus, money supply exceed expectations

China's trade surplus and money supply for July, released Friday by authorities, were higher than expected, the Wall Street Journal reported. The July trade surplus was US$24.36 billion, the second-highest so far. Exports increased 34% from a year earlier to US$107.74 billion and imports increased 27% to US$83.39 billion. Beijing had tried to ease its rising trade surplus in early July through extensive cuts on value-added tax rebates on exports. The M2 money supply rose 18.5% from a year earlier to US$5.07 trillion. Money growth was also the second-fastest expansion so far; it was expected to grow by only 17.1%. Lending at all financial institutions was up 16.5% year-on-year, and new yuan lending for the year to date has reached 87% of the amount for the whole of last year.