In the first 11 months of this year, the total imports and exports between Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Vietnam grew 31 percent year-on-year to 222.97 billion yuan ($31.1 billion), which was 27.4 percentage points higher than the national trade growth rate with Vietnam, Nanning Customs announced on Tuesday.

Exports alone reached 167.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.5 percent. Imports were 55.6 billion yuan, an increase of 55.2 percent.

Guangxi ranked second in terms of the imports and exports scale with Vietnam and sixth in terms of growth rate among all regions nationally.

"Since 1999, Vietnam has been Guangxi's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade volume gradually increasing from billions to hundreds of billions," said Cheng Chaoying, a section chief from Nanning Customs' statistical analysis department.

Guangxi and Vietnam complement each other in agricultural trade. In the first 11 months, Guangxi imported agricultural products worth 7.49 billion yuan from Vietnam, an increase of 57 percent. Fresh durian imports reached 4.16 billion yuan, an increase of 811.6 percent.

Guangxi's vegetables and fruits are popular in the Vietnamese market. Its exports of agricultural products to Vietnam reached 8.58 billion yuan, an increase of 6.1 percent. Among them, vegetable exports reached 3.28 billion yuan, an increase of 3.8 percent.

By Shi Ruipeng and Wang Songsong