China's imports jumped sharply in February helping to reduce its trade surplus by 7.11 billion U.S. dollars from the January figure, the General Administration of Customs said on Tuesday.

The administration's February statistics show that year-on-year the value of China's imports increased 29.6 percent to 51.7 billion dollars, while exports grew by 22.3 percent to 54.15 billion dollars.

The country's trade surplus in February was 2.45 billion dollars, 7.11 billion dollars less than that of the previous month, or the lowest single-month trade surplus since August, 2004, said the Administration.

Customs statistics show that during the last two months, China's total foreign trade value reached 226.37 billion dollars, up 26.3 percent over the same period of the previous year.

In the January-February period, China's exports increased 25.5 percent to 119.19 billion dollars. Meanwhile, imports surged 27.4 percent to 107.18 billion dollars.

The administration said the European Union continued to be China's top trade partner so far this year with the value of bilateral trade surging 19.4 percent to 35.27 billion dollars.

The United States remained China's second largest trade partner with 33.29 billion dollars in bilateral trade in the first two months. Japan maintained its third position as the value of Sino-Japanese trade reached 27.39 billion dollars, said the customs administration.

China's trade with its fourth-largest trade partner, the ASEAN, also increased 28.2 percent in the first two months to 21.28 billion dollars.

According to the administration, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shanghai were China's top trading districts in January and February.

Statistics show, foreign trade value of south China's Guangdong Province in the first two months of this year reached 63.63 billion dollars, a year-on-year growth of 28.4 percent, accounting for 28.1 percent of the country's total foreign trade value.

Source: Xinhua