WASHINGTON, February 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on the 14th that the U.S. trade deficit was 711.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2007, a decrease of 6.2% from the previous year, and it was the first time since the five-year record record.
According to statistics, last year, the value of U.S. goods and services exports hit a record high of 1.62 trillion U.S. dollars, an increase of 12.7 percent over the previous year. Exports of agricultural products, capital goods, automobiles, and their parts and components all reached the highest levels in history.
Last year, the amount of U.S. imports of goods and services hit a record high of 2.33 trillion U.S. dollars, an increase of 5.9% over the previous year. The increase in imports was mainly due to an increase of 9.5% in oil imports, and its import value reached a record high of 331.23 billion U.S. dollars. As oil prices continue to run high early this year, analysts estimate that US oil imports will continue to increase in the coming months.
In 2007, the U.S. trade deficit accounted for 5.1% of the U.S. GDP, which was lower than the 5.7% of the previous year. The data also showed that in December last year, the US trade deficit was 58.8 billion U.S. dollars, a decrease of 6.9% from the previous month.
Last year, the U.S. trade deficit dropped earlier than analysts expected. They believe that the strong economic growth in other parts of the world and the continued depreciation of the U.S. dollar against other major currencies have provided strong support for U.S. export growth.