Photo taken on Oct. 25, 2019 shows the arrival ceremony of the first freight train of the China Railway Express (Yiwu-Liege) Alibaba eWTP Cainiao from eastern China's Yiwu in Liege, Belgium. (Xinhua/Pan Geping)

While China's total goods imports and exports expanded 1.9 percent year on year to 32.16 trillion yuan (about 5 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2020, hitting a record high, the surge in trade with the EU was more than double the average growth rate.

BRUSSELS, Feb. 16  -- China became the main trade partner of the European Union (EU) in 2020, with exports and imports both increasing despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Eurostat said on Monday.

According to the EU's statistical service, the bloc's imports from China throughout the year 2020 grew by 5.6 percent year-on-year to 383.5 billion euros (465 billion U.S. dollars), and exports grew by 2.2 percent to 202.5 billion euros.

At the same time, the trade in goods with the United States, which had topped the EU's trade partners list until early 2020, saw substantial decline in both ways.

The EU also witnessed higher trade volume with the rest of the world in December 2020, up by 6.6 billion euros from the same month in 2019, a first year-on-year increase since it was hit by the pandemic.