Exports rose by 4.9% in April from a year earlier, down from the 8.9%
annual growth seen in the previous month, a sign that global demand may
be slowing.
Meanwhile, imports rose just 0.3% on the year, down from 5.3% in March, indicating a fall in domestic demand.
China has been trying to boost domestic consumption to rebalance its growth.
"It is quite a revealing number. What we are seeing in China
at the moment is an economy that is very much exposed to the global
volatility," Alistair Thornton of IHS Global Insight in Beijing told the
BBC.
"It is clear that the situation in Europe is dragging on China's export performance, and in turn on its overall growth."
Policy easing?
China's robust economic growth in the past few years was
accompanied by a sharp rise in inflation and a surge in property prices.
As a result, Beijing introduced various
measures, including curbs on lending, to try to rein in consumer and
property price growth.
While it has since eased some of those policies, analysts said the effects of the tightening were still being felt.
"China's economy is still to bounce back from the cumulative
effect of the monetary tightening last year which is impacting domestic
demand," said Mr Thornton of IHS Global Insight.
China's central bank has reduced the amount of money banks
must hold in reserve twice in the past few months in a bid to increase
lending. The hope is that more easily available credit will spur
investment and boost demand.
However, some analysts said that the government needed to ease its policies even further.
"There is weakness in domestic demand and that should be a
wake-up [call] to policy makers to do more to stimulate domestic
demand," said Dariusz Kowalczyk of Credit Agricole-CIB.
"Domestic demand is weak and that means we could see gross domestic product growth start to slow."
'Plenty of weakness'
Over the past few years China has relied heavily on the
success of its manufacturing sector and exports to boost its economic
growth.
However, economic problems in the key US and eurozone markets have dented demand and hurt growth.
While there had been hopes of an economic recovery in those
markets, recent data and developments have suggested that the recovery
may take much longer.
In the eurozone, the region's debt crisis fears have
re-emerged after voters in France and Greece backed politicians who are
opposed to state spending cuts.
In the US, jobs growth, which is seen as key to a recovery in the world's biggest economy, slowed in April.
China's policymakers have also found it tough to boost domestic demand enough to offset lower growth in exports.
Given these issues, analysts say the recovery in China's trade is likely to be a very slow one.
"We do expect things to improve. However, it is not going to
be a sharp V-shaped recovery but a slow and volatile one amid plenty of
weakness in both the domestic and global economy," said IHS Global
Insight's Mr Thornton.
Source: BBC News