Business Week reports:

Sometimes Chinese economic data will surprise economists and traders by diverging slightly from consensus forecasts. Yet it is quite rare for the money pros to be off by $13 billion. That's pretty much what happened on Apr. 10, when China reported that its March trade surplus fell 38% year-on-year to $6.87 billion, while most economists were expecting a jump to $20 billion.

Coming at a time when U.S.-China trade relations have hit a nasty stretch, and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab has just filed two formal complaints with the World Trade Organization alleging China is not doing enough to protect intellectual property, one might be tempted to view this as a promising development.

Not really, says Shanghai-based Standard Chartered senior economist Stephen Green. He thinks the falloff instead reflects the fact that Chinese exporters front-loaded a lot of international sales during January and February ahead of moves by Beijing to start reducing export-tax rebates on some Chinese products in March.

To read more:

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/apr2007/gb20070410_001614.htm