The figure was close to the ministry's previous forecast of 1.758 trillion U.S. dollars.

However, the ministry did not reveal the December figures.

The ministry previously projected that the country's exports in 2006 would reach 963 billion U.S. dollars, up 27 percent from 2005,and imports would hit 795 billion U.S. dollars, up 20 percent.

Since China's aggregate trade surplus surged to 156.521 billion U.S. dollars through November, dwarfing the 102 billion U.S. dollars for the full year of 2005, the projections would mean the December trade surplus would plummet from November's 22.9 billion U.S. dollars to 11 billion U.S. dollars.

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