China''s trade surplus has recovered from its surprising fall in March with an excess of exports over imports of $16.9 billion in April from $6.9 billion in the previous month.

The US has charged China in the past of keeping its currency artificially low to keep the cost of its exports low, which denies American companies a level playing field. The rebound of the trade surplus is expected to revive charges about the weakness of the yuan, ahead of scheduled economic negotiations between Chinese and US officials on 22 May.

"The trade figure show that the abrupt slowdown in March was a result of some temporary factors," said Li Huiyong, an analyst at Shenyin & Wanguo Securities.

"The general trend of rapid surplus growth has not changed at all," he added.

China has been criticised by some in the US that Beijing is keeping its currency artificially weak to give its exporters an unfair advantage.

The yuan is at its highest rate since its pegging to the dollar was abandoned in July 2005 in favour of a system of managed bands.

The Chinese central bank says it is also keen to reduce the trade surplus but said on Thursday that it planned to do that by increasing imports rather than strengthening the currency.

Oil prices widen US trade deficit

The trade gap grew 10.6% compared with February to $63.9bn, according to figures from the Commerce Department.

Import price figures for April were also released, showing a larger-than-expected 1.3% rise.

Higher oil and petrol prices were also been blamed for the rise in the import price figure from the Labor Department.

Record imports of food, beverages, animal feed and consumer goods also helped to widen the overall trade gap.

But the US trade deficit with China narrowed by 6.4% to $17.2bn with exports from that country falling to their lowest level for almost a year.

The weak dollar was good news for exporters, and sales to Canada and the European Union hit record levels.

Despite the large deficit in March, the trade deficit for the first three months of the year was $180.7bn, 5.7% below the figure for the first quarter of 2006.