As a result, the total eurozone trade surplus is now massive.

Now it has a surplus.

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

As for turning their surplus sweet potato crop into a profitable business, that's a little harder to judge.

By 2000, China s bilateral trade surplus was as large as Japan s by 2004, it was twice as large.

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.

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.

As a consequence, Ireland s budget surplus will come down, according to forecasts, from 4.7 to 4.3 of GDP.

Until a few months ago, it still looked as if Greece could achieve a primary surplus, albeit a small one, this year.

As the national saving rate has come down, so has the current account surplus.

China represents a massive challenge even for countries, such as Brazil, that have achieved a significant trade surplus up to now.

To do so, the US will need a trade surplus.

Equally problematic is Germany s focus on maintaining a fiscal surplus.

This typically happens when the government runs a primary surplus.

The deficits are as much the fault of the surplus countries as they are of the deficit countries.

China s surplus, as a percentage of GDP, has fallen, but the long term implications have yet to play out.

As long as US assets were attractive to residents of surplus countries (or there was an acceptable chain of investments from surplus countries that ended in the US), these accumulations of reserves were sustainable.

But the euro area as a whole nonetheless had a trade surplus of more than 30 billion over the past 12 months.

Japan's bilateral trade surplus is nearly the same size as its savings in the US.

(iii) 25,395,513 dollars, being the balance in the surplus account as at 31 December 1999

(iii) 15,671,000 dollars, being the balance in the surplus account as at 31 December 2003

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

To be sure, the prolonged rapid increase in Chinese aggregate demand has been fueled by an investment boom, as well as a growing trade surplus.

The US has complained about China s current account (trade) surpluses but, as a percentage of GDP, Germany s surplus is even greater.

Moreover, the Bush and Clinton Administrations warned that Japan should not export its way out of trouble, as if a trade surplus resulting from export growth was somehow unfair. Japan is a country with a structural trade surplus ie, exports are likely to remain above imports on a sustained basis because Japan s trade surplus results from an excess of national saving over investment.

The US is draining a whopping 75 of the world s surplus savings.

Africa has a surplus of agricultural labor and too few other jobs.

That country has a trade surplus. It exports more than it imports.

That's the second half of cognitive surplus.

Who gets to pocket this team surplus ?

Countries like Germany that are running a current account surplus would also help themselves by helping to stimulate the European economy as a whole.

But the reverse is also true as soon as the current account swings to surplus, the pressure from financial markets abates.

In ancient times, India ran a large trade surplus with the Roman empire.

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

Nine months ago, Greece had a budget surplus and prospects for economic growth.

The swing in Greece s fiscal position from a large primary deficit to a surplus was almost unprecedented, but the demand that the country achieve a primary surplus of 4.5 of GDP was unconscionable.

Japan's bilateral trade surplus is nearly the same size as its savings in the US. As long as America borrows Japanese savings to fuel its domestic investment, a trade deficit is inevitable.

President Bush's tax cut, however, squandered the surplus.

Japan is a country with a structural trade surplus ie, exports are likely to remain above imports on a sustained basis because Japan s trade surplus results from an excess of national saving over investment.

The Middle East has a 266 commercial surplus of oil, and the US a 65 deficit.

As a result, China s trade surplus with the US rose from 83 billion in 2001 to 258 billion in 2007, just before the recession.

The 230 billion surplus inherited from Clinton had turned into a 450 billion deficit.

In this scenario, the primary surplus (which excludes interest payments) would achieve escape velocity magnitudes in absolute as well as percentage terms over time.

But the impact will extend beyond the surplus countries.

Today s big surplus countries do not need large reserves.