China's current account surplus, a key gauge of a nation's foreign trade, fell in 2009 for the first time in eight years, official data showed Friday, as the global crisis hit exporters last year.
China booked a current account surplus of 284.1 billion dollars last year, down 35 percent from 2008, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said in a statement on its website.
The figures represents mainly the surplus from goods and services transactions and interest payments involving other countries.
It was the first time since 2001 that China's surplus declined, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The country's exports last year fell 16 percent from the previous year to 1.2 trillion dollars as foreign orders for manufactured goods shrank amid economic contractions in key markets like the United States, the government said previously.
As a result, the trade surplus, a key source of friction between China and major trade partners like the United States and Europe, slumped 34.2 percent from the previous year to 196.1 billion dollars in 2009.
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