WASHINGTON, May 11: US exports took flight in March on the back of strong civilian aircraft sales to bring the country’s trade deficit down to $55 billion, the government said in a surprising report on Wednesday.

The Commerce Department said the deficit fell from February’s revised $60.6 billion, a record high, boosting hopes that the US economy may have been more resilient than thought so far this year.

It was the biggest monthly fall in the deficit since December 2001, and confounded Wall Street’s forecasts for a record-breaking rise to $62 billion in March.

The news lifted the dollar and encouraged economists to believe that talk of a “soft patch” in the world’s biggest economy has been overstated.

“It’s very much a surprise,” Moody’s Investors Service economist John Lonski said.

“Perhaps the pronounced depreciation of the dollar exchange rate is beginning to provide the US economy with a lift on the trade front,” he said.

“This is positive for the economic outlook and implies an upward revision of first-quarter GDP,” he added, after growth in the three-month period came in at 3.1 per cent, its slowest rate in two years.

Lonski and several other economists said that in light of the new trade figures, the quarterly GDP figure may be revised up to 3.5-3.7 per cent, not far off the 3.8 per cent seen in the fourth quarter.—AFP