CAIRO - About 28 Egyptian marble companies will participate in an international stone fair scheduled to open in China in March 2018, official MENA news agency reported Thursday.

"The Xiamen International Stone Fair is one of the biggest fairs for stones in the world and it displays the latest techniques in this field," MENA quoted Walid Gamal al-Din, chairman of the Export Council for Building Materials, as saying.

Xiamen is a coastal tourist city in South China's Fujian province.

As the largest trading partner with Egypt, China is also the largest importer of Egypt's marble and granite, followed by Libya and Saudi Arabia.

Egypt's exports of marble and granite hit 2.127 million tons during the past 11 months compared to 1.739 million in the same period last year, Gamal al-Din noted.

Egypt and China enjoy strong bilateral relations which have been elevated to the level of comprehensive strategic partnership.

The trade volume between China and Egypt hit $11 billion in 2016 and 5.2 billion in the first half of 2017, thus ranking Egypt the third biggest African trading partner with China.