BEIJING - China's foreign trade rose 17.6 percent year-on-year to $334.4 billion in November this year amid weak external demand and a slowing domestic economy, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) announced Saturday.

The year-on-year growth in imports and exports in November was 4 percentage points lower than that in October, according to GAC data.

The November imports rose 22.1 percent year-on-year to $159.94 billion, while exports increased 13.8 percent from a year earlier to $174.46 billion, the GAC said in a statement on its website.

Trade surplus in the month narrowed 34.9 percent from a year earlier to reach $14.52 billion.

China is set to break a new record for its foreign trade volume this year. In the first 11 months its imports and exports expanded 23.6 percent year-on-year to $3.31 trillion, far exceeding the full-year figure of $2.97 trillion in 2010, according to GAC data.

In the first 11 months, China's trade surplus shrank by 18.2 percent year-on-year to $138.4 billion, which came mainly from the country's processing trade in the period.

On breakdown, general trade increased 30.9 percent year-on-year to $1.75 trillion from January to November, while processing trade rose 13.4 percent to $1.19 trillion.

The GAC data showed China's trade with emerging economies greatly outpaced average growth in the January-November period, with its trade with Australia, Brazil, Russia and South Africa rising by 33.8 percent, 36.7 percent, 44 percent and 82.5 percent, respectively.

The European Union (EU) remained China's top trading partner in the first 11 months even though demands from EU was affected by the festering debt crisis, with bilateral trade amounting to $517.11 billion, up 19.2 percent year-on-year.

China's trade with the United States, the country's No 2 trading partner, increased 16.9 percent from a year ago to $405.43 billion.

A free trade area arrangement between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) continued to lift the China-ASEAN trade by 25.1 percent year-on-year to $328.96 billion from January to November.

In the period, China reported a trade deficit of $21.94 billion with ASEAN, 53.5 percent greater than a year ago.

China's trade with Japan, the fourth-largest trading partner, amounted to $312 billion in the first 11 months, a year-on-year increase of 16.5 percent.