Iran’s exports to China rose by nearly 35 percent during the past 10 months, with Beijing  emerging as the Islamic Republic’s top trading partner, The Washington Free Beacon reported.

Iranian media outlets reported that non-oil trade between the two nations rose to $13 billion during the same period — another indication the Iranian economy has been strengthening since nuclear talks began with Germany and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council last year.

Total Iranian non-oil exports rose 15 percent over the previous year when international sanctions against that country were more stringent.

Iran’s top exports to China included iron ore, methanol, propane and ethylene-glycol, according to reports in the state-controlled media. Iran’s primary imports from China included railroad and subway locomotive parts, oil and gas pipelines, car parts and automobiles.

Last year, an activist group called United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) announced the results of its own investigation of Iranian sanctions-busting.

The group discovered that Iranian ships were falsely billing their crude oil as a legal product and shipping it to China — the top purchaser of Iranian crude oil, according to  the Free Beacon.

The UANI said last year that the United States and other Western governments had failed to act on the new information about Iranian-Chinese smuggling collaboration.

Iran’s activities constitute illegal smuggling because “the vessels transfer their oil to other vessels in secret, in order to disguise its origins and circumvent international sanctions,” a UANI spokesman said.

The group alleged this “this sanctions fraud enables Iran to engage in an oil smuggling operation primarily based out of the port of Fujairah, wherein sanctions waiver recipient countries are duped into buying additional Iranian oil mislabeled as Iraqi Special Blend to disguise its Iranian origins.”

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