South China's Guangdong province enjoyed year-on-year foreign trade growth of 1.3 percent, thanks to the big increase of the import and export volume with the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the first half of the year, Guangdong customs said on Tuesday.

Guangdong's foreign trade with the European Union witnessed year-on-year growth of 13.3 percent to hit 410.67 billion yuan (about $60 billion) in the first six months, representing 12.5 percent of the province's total, according to statistics released by Guangdong customs on Tuesday.

The southern province's import and export volume with ASEAN climbed to 439.95 billion yuan from January to June, up 5 percent year-on-year and accounting for 13.4 percent of the province's total.

The steady foreign trade growth with European Union and ASEAN has helped the province, China's biggest foreign trader, offset the foreign trade decline with the United States since the beginning of the year.

Guangdong's foreign trade with the United States was 378.44 billion yuan in the first six months, a year-on-year decrease of 3 percent and representing 11.5 percent of the total.

Guangdong's imports and exports with the neighboring Hong Kong Special Administrative Region came to 500.18 billion yuan between January and June, a slight reduction of 0.7 percent year-on-year.

Guangdong, the window of China's reform and opening-up, recorded a foreign trade volume of 3.28 trillion yuan in the first six months, accounting for 22.4 percent of the country's total.

The province, one of the country's economic powerhouses, generated an export volume of 1.98 trillion yuan in the six months ending in June, up 3.9 percent year-on-year. But Guangdong's imports saw a year-on-year decline of 2.5 percent to come to 1.3 trillion yuan in the first half of the year.

Guangdong, which usually relies much on foreign trade and investment for economic construction, carried a foreign trade surplus of 677.9 billion yuan in the first six months.

The province's foreign trade from private-owned companies rose to 1.66 trillion yuan in the first half of the year, up 5.9 percent year-on-year and accounting for 50.7 percent of the province's total.

And the foreign trade volume from foreign-funded companies and joint ventures was 1.41 trillion yuan from January to June, a year-on-year drop of 3.5 percent which also comprised 43 percent of the province's total, while foreign trade from State-owned companies was 199.04 billion yuan, down 1.1 percent year-on-year and accounting for 6.1 percent of the province's total.