World stocks edged towards last week's 30-month high on Monday as China's shrinking trade surplus underscored its robust domestic demand and talk of slower-than-expected inflation eased policy tightening concerns.
China's trade surplus fell to its lowest in nine months in January after imports surged, highlighting China's massive appetite for raw materials. Solid export growth also hinted at solidifying recoveries in the US and European economies.
Traders said that China's consumer prices may have risen as little as 4.9% in the year to January, well below the consensus forecast of 5.3%. The official data will be announced on Tuesday.
This eased concerns that China's central bank would have to raise interest rates aggressively.
"The talk of the Chinese inflation data and the export and import data is going to boost the market," Heino Ruland, strategist at Ruland Research in Frankfurt said.
"Inflation has been the major worry and there has been a fear of monetary overkill, but until the data is released (on Tuesday) we could see a bit of volatility in the market."
The MSCI world equity index rose 0.3%, having hit its highest level since Aug 2008 last week.
Thomson Reuters' global stock index gained half a percent.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index rose 0.6% to hit a 29-month peak.
Emerging stocks added 1.4%. Shanghai stocks hit an eight-week high, scoring the index's biggest single-day percentage gain since mid-December.
US crude oil fell 0.4% to $85.28 as tension in the Middle East dissipated following the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last week.
