China's trade surplus in April more than doubled the figure of March to 16.88 billion U.S. dollars, though the country's exports grew slower and imports rose faster over the past month, according to the General Administration of Customs.

But the figure was still a drastic decline from February's 23.7 billion U.S. dollars, the second-highest monthly level on record.

The administration said the aggregate surplus for the first four months has reached 63.31 billion U.S. dollars, with the April exports standing at 97.45 billion U.S. dollars and imports 80.57 billion U.S. dollars.

The year-on-year rise for exports in April stood at 26.8 percent, a slight drop of one percentage point from the first quarter; for imports in April, at 21.3 percent, about 3.1 percentage points higher than the first quarter.

The European Union remained the country's top trading partner, seeing its trade with China reach 103.6 billion U.S. dollars in the first four months of 2007, up 29.5 percent from the same period of last year, the customs data show.

The United States was second with trade volume reaching 91.87 billion U.S. dollars, followed by Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

A Chinese business delegation has signed deals worth 4.3 billion dollars with US firms, which analysts say might ease the country's rising trade surplus.