China's trade surplus dropped to $99.03 billion in the first half of this year, down 11.8 percent from the same period of last year, the General Administration of Customs said on Thursday.

Exports increased 21.9 percent year-on-year to $666.6 billion, while imports rose 30.6 percent to $567.57 billion.

The total trade volume in the first six months stood at $1,234.17 billion, a year-on-year rise of 25.7 percent.

Exports in June alone rose 17.6 percent from June last year to $121.53 billion, while imports shot up 31 percent to $100.18 billion.

The June export growth further slowed down from May by 10.5 percentage points, and the import growth was 9 percentage points lower.