It is reported that China’s foreign trade value in 2012 has surpassed that of the US and China has become the world's biggest trading nation. Official from Foreign Trade Department of MOFCOM granted an interview to reporters concerning this issue.

The official said that the measurement of the “2012 US goods trade statistics” recently reported by the media is different from that of China’s goods trade statistics. The above statistics are based on international balance of payments of US Commerce Department. Meanwhile, the US Commerce Department also released another 2012 goods trade figure of US$ 3.8824 trillion, among which exports were measured by FAS price (similar with FOB price) and imports were measured by CIF price. Trade statistics of all nations released by the WTO in the past years were calculated in this way.

The official pointed out that, according to statistics by China Customs, China’s goods trade in 2012 was US$ 3.86676 trillion, among which exports were calculated on FOB price and imports were calculated on CIF price. This is the same measurement with the WTO. If calculated with the measurement of WTO, China’s goods trade in 2012 was US$ 15.64 billion less than that of the US.

The official said that the WTO will release the final statistics on trade value and ranking of all countries at the end of February or the beginning of March of 2013, and by then, the gap in China-US goods trade in 2012 will be known.

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