Although the February returns by the Chinese Maritime Customs for all China show that there was for that month an. excess. of imports of merchandise valued at Chinese Standard $16,870,611 against the January excess of exports of $9,718,962, the totals for the January-February periods Yor this year compared with ast year, show exports almost level with imports whereas in 1935 exports were very far behind.
The total volume of trade continues to shrink as revealed in the figures for the January-February periods for both exports and imports, these being, for 1936 at $241,208,007 against that for 1935 to $253,477,770. With these totals in mind, the following table on merchandise shipments makes the relative positions clear:—
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.