China’s trade with Africa saw a slight increase in the first five months of 2019, official statistics showed.

China-Africa trade volume hit 84.76 billion U.S. dollars in the period, that’s a 3 percent rise on the amount recorded at the same period in 2018, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC).

There was a drop of 1.6 percent in China's overall foreign trade in U.S. dollar terms during the period.

China's exports rose 6.3 percent year on year to hit 43.57 billion U.S. dollars from January to May, while imports from Africa declined 0.3 percent to 41.19 billion U.S. dollars, leading to a surplus of 2.38 billion U.S. dollars.

In May, China-Africa trade expanded 1.7 percent to 18.67 billion U.S. dollars, with China seeing a surplus of 1.89 billion U.S. dollars, according to the GAC.

China's exports in the month stood at 10.28 billion U.S. dollars, up 8.7 percent year on year while the imports totaled 8.39 billion U.S. dollars, down 6 percent than a year earlier.

In 2018, China-Africa trade reached 204.2 billion U.S. dollars, up 20 percent year on year, and China has been Africa's largest trading partner for 10 straight years.

(Top picture: The first China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo (CAETE) was held in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province at June 27-29, focusing on cooperation in the fields of agriculture, infrastructure, cross-border e-commerce and finance.)