Germany runs up highest trade surplus as exports top new record

Germany clocked up its highest-ever trade surplus in 2015 as both exports and imports powered ahead to new records, official data showed on Tuesday. German exports jumped by 6.4 percent to 1.196 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) in the whole of 2015 and imports advanced by 4.2 percent to 948 billion euros, the federal statistics office calculated. The trade surplus is a key gauge of an economy's comparative strength and underlines the robustness of Europe's biggest economy amid the current global e