BEIJING, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- China-U.S. trade amounted to 221.36 billion U.S. dollars in the first three quarters of this year, a growth of 15.6 percent on the same period of last year.

    According to customs data, China's export to the United States increased by 15.8 percent to 169.99 billion U.S. dollars, or 19.4 percent of China's total exports. The country's import from the U.S. went up 15.1 percent to 51.37 billion U.S. dollars, or 7.45 percent of the country's total import.

    China's trade surplus against the U.S. continued to expand but at a slower pace. It stood at 118.62 billion U.S. dollars between January and September, up 16.43 billion dollars or 16.1 percent. But the growth rate was 9.7 percentage points lower that that for last year's same period.

    Most of the surplus came from processing trade, which rose 12.4percent year-on-year to 119.16 billion dollars, or 53.8 percent of the total bilateral trade. The processing trade made up 91.46 billion dollars, or 77.1 percent, of the trade surplus.

    Foreign-funded enterprises accounted for 65.5 percent of the bilateral trade in the first three quarters, or 72.4 percent of China's trade surplus against the U.S. .