China's trade up by 13.4% in Q1

China's trade volume in the first quarter of 2013 reached 986 billion US dollars, a 13.4 percent increase compared to last year.

The data was released Wednesday by Zheng Yuesheng, the Spokesperson & Director-general of the Department of Statistics of the General Administration of Customs. He added that China's exports in the first quarter hit 516 billion US dollars, a 18.4 percent increase, while imports grew by 8.4 percent to 470 billion US dollars.

The country's trade surplus reached 4.36 billion US dollars. First quarter trade with the US and the ASEAN countries rose but trade with the EU and Japan dropped. Zheng said the latest figures show that China's economy is growing steadily despite the gloomy world economy.