China's Current Account Surplus for 2018 Continued Contracting to Almost Zero

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James Politi, China's Surplus Aligns with Trading Partners. Financial Times, July 18, 2019, at page 4.
("The country's current account surplus had dropped to close to zero, the IMF said yesterday [July 17], for the first time since 2012, when the IMF began reporting on the imbalances that afflict the world's large economies. * * * China [ran] a surplus as high as 10 per cent of GDP in 2007")

Note: This news report is based on
2019 External Sector Report; The dynamics of external adjustment. IMF, July 17, 2019.
https://www.imf.org/en/Publicati ... ernal-sector-report
, whose
Chapter 1. External Positions and Policies
contains
Box 1.2. Pragyan Deb and Swarnali Ahmed Hannan, China: Understanding the Decline in the Current Account Surplus.

Box 1.2, at pages 21-23 of full report, states: "The services trade balance swung from a small surplus of 0.1 percent of GDP in 2007 [not shown in the bar chart which starts at 2008] to a deficit of 2.2 percent in 2018, mainly on account of
a massive (fourfold) increase in outbound tourism. * * * In terms of composition [of goods (trade) surplus], while imports of raw materials have risen, the manufacturing balance, although sizable, has plateaued, consistent with the pace of trade integration. * * * China's saving rate, driven by household saving, has declined from its peak, while rebalancing has led to a slow shift from investment to consumption (Figure 1.2.2). Looking ahead, growth differentials between China and trading partners suggest that import growth will outpace export growth, especially given difficulties in further increasing market share [outside China] now that China has become the world's largest goods exporter (Figure 1.2.3).  Domestic policies have supported the current account surplus decline, but at the expense of internal imbalances (Figure 1.2.4). * * *