Last month's 24.4-billion-dollar trade surplus, published by customs authorities, was up 66.7 percent from the same month a year ago but down slightly from June's record 26.9 billion dollars.

"The figures will only further increase international pressure on China, especially its currency policy, no doubt about it," said Wang Qing, a Hong Kong-based analyst with Morgan Stanley.

Exports in July grew 34.2 percent to 107.7 billion dollars while imports, drawn in by China's fast growing economy, rose 26.9 percent to 83.4 billion dollars.

The increase in exports "probably reflected Chinese exporters' anticipation of more tightening policies, which in turn drove them to speed up exports," said Wang.

Beijing has, among other things, been cutting export subsidies for lower value, high polluting industries in an effort to keep the burgeoning trade surplus in check but so far with little apparent effect.

Those measures, taking effect last month, were said to have boosted the June trade performance significantly as exporters rushed to beat the deadline.

The July figures bring the accumulated trade surplus so far this year to 136.8 billion dollars, on track to surpass last year's record 177.5 billion dollars and a massive increase from 32 billion dollars in 2004.

The trade data was announced amid growing international concerns with China's trade balance, triggering fears the Asian giant's export machine is costing millions of jobs elsewhere.

"The strong forex reserve accumulation has continued into the third quarter, and there remains a lot of pressure on the yuan to appreciate," said Robert Subbaraman, a Hong Kong-based economist with Lehman Brothers.

The foreign criticism, led by the United States and the EU, is focused especially on the value of the Chinese currency, the yuan, which is held to be massively undervalued to give Chinese exporters an unfair advantage.

Two US Senate committees have recently approved legislation that could punish China with sanctions if it does not allow the yuan to rise to levels more in line with the country's economic performance.

President George W. Bush on Wednesday said China would be "foolhardy" to attempt to push down the dollar in retaliation for US pressure over Beijing's alleged currency manipulation.

Bush made the comment after Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported two officials at leading Communist Party bodies had warned that Beijing might use its more than a trillion dollars in foreign reserves as a political weapon.

China has repeatedly said that it will carry out currency reform at its own pace but will not be pressured by others to speed up changes in the exchange rate.

"Reform in China is not out of the demand of other countries but out of our own demand ... we will not follow others' words," Finance Minister Jin Renqing said at a meeting in Australia last week.

Analysts said that China's trade surplus was unlikely to narrow sfignificantly in the coming months.

"If the government adopts more tightening policies to curb investment, it will cool growth in domestic demand and in turn slow import growth. That would allow the trade surplus to become even bigger," said Wang.