South Korea's trade volume with China has returned to levels seen before Beijing's retaliation against a deployment of U.S. anti-missile THAAD system on the Korean Peninsula.

The Trade Ministry in Seoul said Wednesday that marking the three-year anniversary of free trade deals with both China and Vietnam this year, trade remains active despite the U.S.-China trade war and global expansion of trade protectionism.

Korea's trade with its largest trading partner China is nearly recovered after hitting the bottom in 2016, according to the industry ministry.

Trade volume with China totaled 247-point-three billion U.S. dollars this year as of November, up 13-point-seven percent compared to a year earlier. That's higher than the global trade average of around nine percent. 

Outbound shipments totaled 150 billion dollars, up 17-point-two percent on-year, with semiconductors, petroleum products and computers making up a bulk of the exports.

Meanwhile, South Korea's trade with Vietnam jumped by seven percent on-year, with bilateral trade volume reaching 62-point-six billion dollars. This makes Vietnam Korea's fourth-largest trading partner.