Federal Reserve Board staff published a FEDS Note assessing historically large revisions to China’s balance of payments trade data and their implications for measuring its external surplus. Replacing the official goods trade balance with customs data raises the estimated 2025 current account surplus from 3.8% to 4.4% of GDP. Applying the International Monetary Fund’s External Balance Assessment framework to the adjusted figure implies that the renminbi was undervalued by 24.3%, compared with 20% using official data. The revisions increased previously reported exports and imports back to 2019, averaging about USD 60 billion for each series and reaching nearly USD 120 billion for exports and USD 80 billion for imports in recent quarters. They largely eliminated the gap between balance of payments and customs exports but widened the import discrepancy, which now accounts for 96.6% of the overall trade balance gap. The note finds that this concentration makes the remaining difference especially difficult to verify because ownership based adjustments for foreign owned goods produced and sold within China cannot be corroborated through customs or partner country data.
2026-09-22Federal Reserve Board
US Federal Reserve Board staff analysis estimates China’s current account surplus at 4.4% of GDP and renminbi undervaluation at 24.3%
Federal Reserve Board staff estimate that using customs trade data would raise China’s 2025 current account surplus from 3.8% to 4.4% of GDP. Under the IMF’s assessment framework, the adjusted surplus implies renminbi undervaluation of 24.3%, while recent revisions have left almost the entire discrepancy between customs and balance of payments data on the difficult to verify import side.