At the end of January 2018, China had a merchandise trade balance of 20,349.12 USD mn. By February, it was 33,751.60 USD mn before falling to -4,982.78 USD mn at the end of March. For April the trade balance increased again to 28,382.13 USD mn, 24,921.55 USD mn by May, 41,469.87 USD mn by June, 28,049.77 USD mn July, 27,886.42 USD mn by August, 31,702.38 USD mn for September and 34,016.40 USD mn for October.

Thailand’s trade balance has remained on a healthy course over the past two years in spite of the lower surplus trend recently. With regards to the latest data in August 2017, the exports of goods surged 13.23% year-over-year to 21.2 billion USD, while imports rose at a higher rate of 14.93% YoY to 19.1 billion USD resulting in a trade surplus of 2.09 billion USD after the country had recorded the trade deficit of 188 million USD back in July 2017.

China’s foreign trade rallied significantly in Q1 2017 thanks to recovered demand from home and abroad. However, an obvious deviation was identified in August trade data. Seasonal adjusted exports decelerated to 4% y-o-y, much slower than the 8.7% in July, while imports were growing 2% faster at 13.3% y-o-y.

China broke manufacturing records for steel and aluminium in Q2 of 2017, meeting the intended expansion target for the quarter.

In terms of its foreign trade, Ukraine has gradually started to recover from the political crisis of 2014 – with a notable shift in trade relations from the CIS countries to Europe and Asia.