China posted a trade surplus of 1.68 billion U.S. dollars in April, down 87 percent from a year earlier, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said on Monday.

According to the GAC figures, China's exports in April totaled 119.92 billion U.S. dollars, up 30.5 percent from a year ago and 6.3 percent from March. While imports reached 118.24 billion U.S. dollars, up 49.7 percent year on year.

Combining imports and exports, China's April external trade rose 39.4 percent year on year to 238.16 billion U.S. dollars.

Taking the first four months together, China's January-April external trade increased 42.7 percent from a year earlier to 855.99 billion U.S. dollars.

From January to April, China's exports rose 29.2 percent year on year to 436.05 billion U.S. dollars while imports grew 60.1 percent to 419.94 billion U.S. dollars, resulting in a trade surplus of 16.11 billion U.S. dollars in the first four months, sharply down 78.6 percent from a year earlier.

According to the GAC figures for the January-April period, the European Union remained China's largest trading partner, with China-EU bilateral trade topping 137.77 billion U.S. dollars, up 34.6 from the same period last year.

January-April trade between China and the United States, the country's second largest trading partner, increased 25 percent year on year to 107.18 billion U.S. dollars.

Japan outpaced the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as China's third largest trading partner in the first four months, revealed the GAC statistics.

January-April trade between China and Japan gained 37.5 percent to 88.66 billion U.S. dollars, up 34.6 percent from a year ago. In the first four months, China's trade deficit with Japan more than doubled to 17.72 billion U.S. dollars.

China also recorded a trade deficit of 5.87 billion U.S. dollars with ASEAN from January to April, compared with 830 million U.S. dollars of trade surplus with ASEAN in the same period last year.