Villager Zhao Yanfei paints in Gongbi style in Ningjin County, north China's Hebei Province, May 23, 2018. Ningjin has over 30 villages with characteristics of Gongbi painting and nearly 6,000 related employees. The Gongbi painting works of the county are popular across the country and have been exported to Singapore, Japan and the Republic of Korea. China's foreign trade rose 9.7 percent year on year to a historic high of 30.51 trillion yuan (about 4.5 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2018, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Monday. Exports rose 7.1 percent year on year to 16.42 trillion yuan last year, while imports grew 12.9 percent to 14.09 trillion yuan, resulting in a trade surplus of 2.33 trillion yuan, which narrowed by 18.3 percent. Exports and imports of products under the general trade category surged 12.5 percent year on year to 17.64 trillion yuan, accounting for 57.8 percent of the total foreign trade, 1.4 percentage points higher than 2017. (Xinhua/Zhu Xudong)