ADDIS ABABA, May 31 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia exported 239.82 million U.S. dollars' worth of goods to China in 2017, accounting for 8.25 percent of its total exports, the Ethiopia Ministry of Trade (MoT) said on Thursday.

The revenue was earned from the exports of agricultural products, textile and garment, leather products, minerals, flowers and construction materials, according to the MoT Public Relations and Communication Affairs Office.

Ethiopia's export revenue to China accounted for about 8.25 percent of the country's total exports in 2017, the second largest export destination for the East African country. Ethiopia exported about 2.9 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods in 2017.

Ethiopia's largest export destination in 2017 was neighboring Somalia, which imported 269.3 million U.S. dollars' worth of goods accounting for 9.26 percent of Ethiopia's total exports.

Speaking to Xinhua recently, Wondimu Filate, head of Public Relations and Communications Affairs Office at MoT, said China is becoming a key export destination, in particular because of increasing demands for Ethiopia's organic, high quality and high nutritional agricultural exports.

"China is a big export market for Ethiopian products, with Chinese firms located in Ethiopian industrial parks tentatively starting to export industrial goods to China. The volume of Ethiopian exports to China is expected to significantly increase in the coming years," he said.