BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- China's trade surplus in October rose 13.5 percent over the same month last year to 27.05 billion U.S. dollars, the General Administration of Customs said on Monday.

The figure was slightly higher than the 23.91 billion dollars in September and lower than the average 30.6 billion U.S. dollars predicted by large financial institutions such as Bank of China (Hong Kong) and JP Morgan Chase.

In October, exports reached 107.73 billion U.S. dollars, up 22.3 percent year-on-year yet down 0.5 percentage points over September. Imports grew to 80.67 billion U.S. dollars, up 25.5 percent or 9.4 percentage points higher than September.

Trade surplus in the first ten months amounted to 212.36 billion U.S. dollars, up 59 percent. The growth rate was 10.2 percentage points lower than the first nine months.

China's trade volume totaled 1.76 trillion U.S. dollars for the first ten months of 2007, up 23.5 percent on last year. The growth rate was the same as September, according to the report.

The administration said in its monthly report, "The slowdown in export growth and a steady increase in import reflected the country's efforts to improve foreign trade have begun to pay off."