China's foreign trade rose 2.7 percent year on year to 308.08 billion U.S. dollars in April, with a surplus of 18.42 billion U.S. dollars, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Thursday.

The growth rate represents a slowdown from the 7.1-percent rate logged in March.

Exports amounted to 163.25 billion U.S. dollars in April, up 4.9 percent year on year, while imports edged up 0.3 percent to reach 144.83 billion dollars, the GAC data showed.

For the first four months of the year, the country's foreign trade went up 6 percent from a year earlier to 1.17 trillion U.S. dollars, with exports and imports up 6.9 percent and 5.1 percent to 593.24 billion U.S. dollars and 573.94 billion U.S. dollars, respectively.

China saw trade surplus of 19.3 billion U.S. dollars during the January-April period, the GAC said.