China's exports rose 2.90% year-on-year in July to 1.22 trillion yuan (around $180 billion), Customs said on Monday, in a rare positive sign for the world's second-largest economy.

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Imports were down 5.70% in yuan terms to 873 billion yuan, while the trade surplus jumped by more than a third, to 342.8 billion yuan.

As the world's biggest trader in goods China is crucial to the global economy and its performance affects partners from Australia to Zambia, which have been battered by its slowing growth -- while it faces headwinds itself in key developed markets.

Its imports have been shrinking since late 2014 with global commodity prices hammered as the country's once blistering expansion lost steam, slowed down by manufacturing overcapacity, a slowing property market and mounting debt.

Total trade volume with the European Union (EU), China's biggest trading partner, rose 1.8% in the first seven months of the year, Customs said in a statement, and was up 0.8% with Japan. But it fell 4.8% with the US, data showed.

China's Customs administration releases trade figures in the country's own yuan currency first, before later issuing a US dollar figure -- which more clearly illustrates its impact on the rest of the world.