The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said in Beijing on Tuesday it would guide policy banks to make additional 100 billion yuan (US$14.7 billion) of loans by the end of 2008.

The money would go to the construction of key projects and the purchase of agricultural products, the central bank said, without elaborating.

It also encouraged commercial banks to provide supporting loans for projects covered by the central government's investment of 100 billion yuan before the year end.

On the same day, China's General Administration of Customs announced a record monthly trade surplus of US$35.2 billion in October.

It was the fourth consecutive monthly rise since July. Total foreign trade rose 17.6 percent from the same month last year to US$221.4 billion in October, according to the Customs website.

Though exports growth further slowed to 19.2 percent from 21.5 percent in September, which might have led to smaller trade surplus, the trade gap continued to widen on sharply declining imports.

China's exports reached US$128.3 billion, while its imports registered US$93.1 billion in October.

"Export growth is slightly higher than expected," said Asian Development Bank (ADB) economist Zhuang Jian. "But the impact of reduced demand from the European and American markets remains, and will continue to damage exports. The situation might be more severe next year."

Exports to the United States rose 11.4 percent to US$212.8 billion in the first 10 months, an acceleration of 0.2 percentage points from the first three quarters.

Exports to the European Union gained 24.5 percent to US$246.7 billion year on year, down 1.1 percentage points than the first nine months.

The growth of China's imports slowed much faster than expected, indicating a serious lack of domestic demand, Zhuang said.

Affected by the global economic slowdown, imports growth dropped from 33.7 percent in July gradually to 15.6 percent in October.

The decline in imports is not only caused by the slackening domestic demand, but also triggered by the fall in exports.

As a large proportion of China's imports come from the demand for resources and materials needed to produce finished export products, the decrease in exports has also pulled down imports, said Zhuang.

(CRIENGLISH.com November 13, 2008)