and it was all let's do business bolen's finally got some ammunitions you ease international criticism over its huge trade surplus it shrunk for the first time in eight years and that's despite german exports hitting an all time high for twenty seventeen the nation behind die in the bents at the added us and banks being shipped close to one point three trillion euros worth of goods to the rest of the world an increase of more than six percent compared to the previous year's figures which were also a record imports increased as well to just over a trillion euros that had a welcome side effect it narrowed germany's and tourist trade surplus to two hundred forty five billion euros germany has been drawing fire from the u.s. and other trading partners over the imbalance for a long time now let's go over to daniel cope our financial couch correspondent in frankfurt who's following this story for us so the trade surplus is a subject again daniel but this time it's actually struck. yeah exactly products in germany are still it's truly popular but there's this double or more standard yes that