WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- US Treasury Secretary John Snow said Wednesday that the country's record trade deficit set in November was a result of US economic growth outpacing that of other countries.

    "The trade gap reflects two things: that our economy is growing at a fast pace and we are growing faster than our trading partners," Snow told reporters at the New York Stock Exchange, according to reports reaching here.

    He also said that the Group of Seven industrialized countries will focus their agenda on the global economy when their finance ministers and central bankers meet in February.

    "I think we'll need more than one growth engine in the world. We need Europe to be an engine of growth. We need Japan to be an engine of growth," he said.

    Snow once again reiterated the US strong dollar policy on Wednesday.

    "It's always the same policy, our policy is the strong dollar. There's been no change in that from the day I two years ago came into office to today," he said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

    Meanwhile, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Wednesday that President Bush sees the record trade deficit as evidence the United States is the global driver of economic growth.

    "Our economy is the economic engine for world growth," McClellan told reporters at the White House.

    Because of that prosperity, Americans are shopping in the global marketplace, buying more goods and services than other countries which are not growing as fast, he said.

    Earlier Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported that US trade deficit hit an all-time high of 60.3 billion dollars in November, well above the 53.6 billion-dollar gap economists were expecting.

    The report sent the dollar plummeting against its major currency rivals. Enditem