"The trade growth between China and North Korea in the first half of the year was mainly driven by exports", Huang said, adding that the exports were mainly labor-intensive products such as textiles, which are not banned under United Nations resolutions.
But coal imports slumped by 75%, suggesting Beijing is gradually choking off North Korea's biggest source of foreign currency.
But a 29 percent spike in Chinese exports to North Korea - North Korea bought $1.67 billion worth of Chinese products in the first six months of the year - helped push total trade between the two countries up 10 percent between January and June, compared with the same period last year. They had risen by 18% in the quarter ended March.
China suspended imports of North Korean coal in February, while imports of iron ore accord with relevant United Nations resolutions, he said.
President Trump has repeatedly criticized China over its trade with North Korea, calling on it to exert more pressure on Kim Jong-un's regime. "It's not like, oh, gee, you just do whatever we say", Trump said.
The looming decision comes as the administration has grown impatient with China for failing to do more to rein in North Korea.
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On Thursday, the chief minister had said that his goverment was serious about initating flood control measures. The same explosive was also found in two cargo planes from Yemen to the U.S. in October 2010.
Asked about the surge in China's imports of North Korean iron ore and in China's ethanol exports to North Korea in recent months, Huang said that trade with North Korea for civilian use was allowed despite the sanctions. Huang told reporters on Thursday that the rise in trade was mainly due to an increase in textile exports.
The White House took swift action after seeing that a strategy of persuasion wasn't working - approving a long-delayed arms sales package to Taiwan, sending in a pair of freedom of navigation operations to challenge Beijing's territorial claims in the heavily contested South China Sea, and imposing an initial round of secondary sanctions, which targeted a few individuals and companies with financial ties to Pyongyang. "Trade related to DPRK people's livelihoods, especially those that reflect humanitarianism should not be influenced by the sanctions".
The new data reflects China's attempt to pull off a delicate balancing act between the US and North Korea, where it wants to prevent the regime collapsing because it worries about what that would mean for regional stability.
But Beijing, as it has in the past, largely resisted Trump's demands.
In a bid to reign in Kim Jong-un, the U.S. has also proposed tougher sanctions on North Korea following their provocative ICBM test launch earlier this month.
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