Taiwan's trade surplus is expected to reach a record high of US$30 billion this year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said Tuesday. The highest-ever surplus however, will be the result of a severe decrease in imports rather than an expansion in the country's exports, ministry officials said. Under the impact of the global economic crisis, Taiwan's exports to China (including Hong Kong) registered a fall for the 12th consecutive month since September last year, said Huang Chih-peng, director-general of the Bureau of Foreign Trade under the MOEA, in an analysis of the cross-Taiwan Strait trade situation. He said Taiwan's two-way trade with China totaled US$65.44 billion in the first eight months of this year, representing a drop of 32.7 percent compared to the same period of a year ago. Of the total, exports to China totaled US$50.43 billion, representing a decline of 31.7 percent, while imports stood at US$15 billion, down 35.9 percent, Huang added. Huang said Taiwan's exports to the other side of the strait registered the largest fall of 58.6 percent in January, after which the scale of the recession in exports narrowed to 30 percent between March and June, to 20.6 percent in July and 17.3 percent in August. He further predicted that Taiwan's exports to China will record positive growth from October. Huang said his bureau has worked out a new project in which the budget allocated for exploring the China market will be increased by 10 percentage points, but he did not elaborate. Saying that the global economic crisis is coming to an end and that China will be the first of the world's major economies to recover, Huang expressed optimism that Taiwan's overall external exports will benefit as a result and will see positive growth from the fourth quarter of this year. Citing a forecast by the IHS Global Insight, the bureau said the global economy will drop by 2.2 percent this year, but is expected to grow by 2.5 percent in 2010. 