China's trade surplus and UK trade deficit shrink

The rise in China's trade surplus came to a halt in November. Bloomberg reports:

China's trade surplus narrowed in November to $10.5 billion... The surplus shrank from a record $12.02 billion in October and was higher than the $9.93 billion a year earlier, the Beijing- based Commerce Ministry said today. Exports rose 18.4 percent from a year ago, the smallest gain since June 2002. Imports gained 20.9 percent, the ministry said.

The UK also reported trade data yesterday, relayed by Reuters:

The Office for National Statistics said that the goods trade gap narrowed to 4.55 billion pounds in October from a revised 5.6 billion the month before and was much tighter than the 5.3 billion economists had expected.

That one billion pound narrowing came as the country once again became a small net oil exporter after three straight months in deficit, leaving a surplus of 64 million pounds.

The ONS said the improvement was also driven by large exports of aircraft and aircraft parts to the EU in October, leaving total monthly goods exports at 18.5 billion pounds, the highest since records began in 1697...

The total goods and services trade gap also narrowed, to 2.88 billion pounds from 3.9 billion the month before.