Two-way trade between China and Africa grew 31 percent in the first quarter of 2005, a growth rate higher than China's overall foreign trade growth volume, the Ministry of Commerce said Friday.

The trade volume from January to March reached 7.6 billion US dollars, up 31 percent from the same period last year. It was 7.9 percentage points higher than China's overall foreign trade increase.

China exported a total of 3.61 billion US dollars worth of machinery, electronic products and other commodities to Africa, up 43.5 percent.

In the same period, China imported 3.99 billion US dollars worth of crude oil, iron ore, iron and steel goods, timber, diamond, copper and cotton from Africa, up 21.4 percent.

As a result, African countries gained a trade surplus of 380 million US dollars with China.

Chinese trade analysts attributed the growth partly to the tariff exemption policy that China enacted at the beginning of the year over 190 categories of goods from 25 of the least developed African countries, including Sudan and Liberia.

China's imports of the 190 categories of African goods reached 59.852 million US dollars in the first three months of the year, up 44.7 percent, 23.3 percentage points higher than the growth rate of China's imports from Africa.

Trade officials from the Ministry of Commerce said China has encouraged its businessmen to invest in Africa. As a result, China 's direct investment to Africa reached 2.80 million US dollars in the first three months, comparing with 135 million US dollars of direct investment that Chinese businessmen brought to Africa last year.

In addition, China signed new engineering contracts with African nations worth of 1.53 billion US dollars in the first quarter. The total number of Chinese workers in Africa added up to 74,000.