2019 foreign trade volume up 2.8% through Sept

China's foreign trade volume amounted to 22.91 trillion yuan in the first three quarters of this year, growing 2.8 percent year-on-year, the General Administration of Customs announced on Monday morning.

In the meantime, the country' exports rose by 5.2 percent to 12.48 trillion yuan and imports dropped by 0.1 percent to 10.43 trillion yuan.

The trade surplus expanded by 44.2 percent year-on-year to 2.05 trillion yuan.

In September, China's foreign trade volume reached 2.78 trillion yuan, down by 3.3 percent year-on-year.

Customs said that the country's foreign trade was generally stable and steadily improved during between January and September this year.

Trade with the EU and ASEAN, China's two biggest trading partners, reached 3.57 trillion yuan and 3.14 trillion yuan respectively in the first three quarters of 2019, increasing 8.6 percent and 11.5 percent, respectively, from the same period a year earlier, data released from the GAC showed.

Meanwhile, trade with the US dropped 10.3 percent to 2.75 trillion yuan.

Trade with economies related to the Belt and Road Initiative totaled 6.65 trillion yuan, an increase of 9.5 percent on a year-on-year basis, which is 6.7 percentage points higher than the overall foreign trade growth rate during the same period.