BEIJING - China's foreign trade tumbled 10.8 percent to 2.09 trillion yuan (341.16 billion USdollars) year on year in January, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Sunday.
Exports dropped 3.2 percent to 1.23 trillion yuan and imports slumped 19.7 percent to 860 billionyuan, making the trade surplus expand 87.5 percent to 366.9 billion yuan, according to the GACdata.
"Spring Festival impacts foreign trade data at the beginning of every year," the GAC said in apress release.
The State Council, China's Cabinet, has approved the GAC to release its trade data in yuan-denominated version since this year.
Before 2014, the GAC mainly used the US dollar in its trade data releases. It started to use boththe dollar and yuan to denominate all trade figures in 2014 in an effort to promote the expansionin use of yuan.