SINGAPORE These days everyone seems to want to run a current account surplus.

So China continues to run a giant trade surplus, and the US continues to spend and borrow.

In spite of the crisis, Norway in 2009 still had a 9 state budget surplus, and was the only western country to run a surplus as of July of that year.

These deficits facilitate the surpluses that emerging markets such as China want to run the world s current accounts add up to zero, so if one large set of countries wants to run a surplus, someone big needs to run a deficit.

But what works for Germany cannot work for the rest of Europe no country can run a chronic trade surplus without others running deficits.

If a considerable fraction of the world economy wants to run a current account surplus (by 2006, this included much of emerging Asia, most oil exporters, and Japan), an equal share of the world economy must run a deficit.

China, in particular, needs to confront the fact that the rest of the world will not allow it to run a huge trade surplus forever.

As a surplus saver, China has run large current account surpluses since 1994, accumulating a massive portfolio of foreign exchange reserves that now stands at almost 3.7 trillion.

Since China s external surplus is already down to less than 2 of GDP, a decline in domestic saving could result in China beginning to run a current account deficit.

And Germany recorded a trade surplus of 175 billion in the 12 months through August, whereas Spain has run a trade deficit of 84 billion in the past 12 months.

But when a country s growth rate continues to increase, its saving rate would increase faster than its investment rate, so it is more likely to run a current account surplus.

Even with German level interest rates, Greece would have to run a primary surplus of at least 2 of GDP still quite large, and far from today s deficit.

They should almost thank the French for their inability to impose effective austerity measures and thereby still run a small current account deficit, which has prevented the eurozone surplus from becoming even larger.

But just think how different everything would look if America had a trade surplus and a more manageable level of domestic borrowing than the 14 trillion run up in debt by credit card holders before 2007.

After all, under any scenario, Greece will need to run a primary surplus and undertake structural reforms to transform its economy. And many insist that this will not happen, because Greece simply refuses to change.

(h) Surplus

Lacking in saving and wanting to grow, America must import surplus savings from abroad. And to attract that foreign capital, it has no choice but to run equally large balance of payments deficits.

China s Shrinking Trade Surplus

Saudi Arabia also has a bilateral and multilateral surplus Americans want its oil, and Saudis want fewer US products. Even in absolute value, Saudi Arabia s multilateral merchandise surplus of 212 billion in 2008 dwarfs China s 175 billion surplus as a percentage of GDP, Saudi Arabia s current account surplus, at 11.5 of GDP, is more than twice that of China.

Given that it has been running an investment income deficit, a trade surplus, and current account surplus, it seems that it should be classified as a debtor repayer.

One can only pity the Southern European countries. They should almost thank the French for their inability to impose effective austerity measures and thereby still run a small current account deficit, which has prevented the eurozone surplus from becoming even larger.

If Greece is to start paying just the interest on its debt rather than rolling it into new loans by 2011 the government would need to run a primary budget surplus (i.e., excluding interest payments) of nearly 10 of GDP.

Indeed, if foreign owned enterprises exports are deducted from the total trade volume, the surplus vanishes, because both the overall balance of merchandise trade and the balance of trade in services normally run deficits.

They observed that each province in British India, including Burma, had a surplus of foodgrains, and the annual surplus was 5.16 million tons (Bhatia, 1970).

Booming tax receipts have provided the government with a fiscal surplus.

There are still a few million surplus workers in Central Asia.

The End of China s Surplus

As a result, the banks foreign exchange surplus reached 44.6 billion, rising 38 from February and marking the seventh consecutive month in which bank to client transactions created a surplus.

Until recently, the region maintained a trade surplus with the US, but with liberalization, the region will increase imports of more affordable goods, thereby turning the surplus into a deficit.

In the run up to the Seoul summit, the US government put forward a proposal that the surplus regions of the world should increase their domestic demand mainly consumption to boost imports and thereby help the deficit regions (including the US) to recover.

Moreover, none of these countries has a capital surplus of China s magnitude.

As a result, China s external surplus GDP ratio fell significantly in 2009.

Indeed, Keynes believed that it was surplus countries, far more than deficit countries, that posed a threat to global prosperity he went so far as to recommend a tax on surplus countries.

The last surplus was in 1974.

(p) Surplus due to Member States

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

And the German government s commitment to fiscal consolidation enabled it to achieve a surplus last year by 2018, the fiscal surplus is expected to amount to 1.5 of GDP.

Don't you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win.

More recently, however, China has been running a large multilateral surplus as well.

And with that lower saving rate will come a smaller current account surplus.

What makes this perverse is that Germany runs a huge current account surplus.

China s growth currently relies on an undervalued currency and a huge trade surplus.

Surplus value is a central concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy.

NATO has been involved in the destruction of a number of surplus stockpiles.

One essential (and generally agreed) goal of such coordination should be to reduce global imbalances like those caused in recent years by the European Union s rising external surplus, which has forced many emerging economies to run growing deficits.