China's foreign trade in 2009 dropped 13.9 percent from a year earlier to 2.21 trillion U.S. dollars and its trade surplus last year slid 34.2 percent year on year to 196.1 billion U.S. dollars, according to figures released Sunday by the General Administration of Customs (GAC).

In breakdown, China's exports in 2009 stood at 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars, down 16 percent from in 2008, and imports reached 1.01 trillion U.S. dollars, down 11.2 percent from a year earlier, said the GAC.

In December 2009, monthly trade amounted to 243 billion U.S. dollars, which represented a year-on-year increase of 32.7 percent and a month-to-month rise of 16.7 percent.

Last month, China's exports were worth 130.7 billion U.S. dollars, up 17.7 percent from a year earlier. December's imports hit record monthly high to reach 112.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 55.9 percent from the same period of 2008, according to the GAC.