China’s annual trade in goods topped $4 trillion for the first time last year, surpassing the U.S. as the world’s largest trader. <\/i><\/p>\n
In 2013, exports from the world’s second-largest economy climbed 7.9 percent to $2.21 trillion, while imports rose 7.3 percent to $1.95 trillion, official figures showed, bringing total trade to $4.16 trillion, an increase of 7.6 percent from 2012.<\/p>\n
Trade surplus for the full year stood at $260 billion, widening 12.8 percent from 2012.<\/p>\n
Surplus for December, however, missed targets, coming in at $25.6 billion, far short of the $31.15 billion a poll by Reuters and smaller than the $33.8 billion logged in November.<\/p>\n
(Read more:<\/i> The risky China assets you may want to own<\/a>)<\/p>\n Exports for the month rose 4.3 percent from the year-ago period, lower than the 4.9 percent rise consensus and down from November’s 12.7 percent rise.<\/p>\n Imports, meanwhile, rose an annual 8.3 percent in December, better than the 5.3 percent expected rise. Imports climbed 5.3 percent in the month before.<\/p>\n The Shanghai Composite<\/a> widened its losses to a five-month low on the news, while the Australian dollar<\/a> slipped against the greenback.<\/p>\n The China trade figures are closely watched for a gauge of how global demand is faring.<\/p>\n Analysts said despite the miss on the trade surplus front, the strong showing in imports numbers indicates the economy remains in good shape.<\/p>\n (Read more<\/i>: Here’s how bad China’s bad loan problem could get<\/a>)<\/p>\n “[The] pick-up in imports reflects that domestic demand is stronger than people expected. We think China is still capable of growing 7-7.5 percent in 2014,” Geoff Lewis, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, told CNBC.<\/p>\n “Trade data is usually volatile around this time of year, with the Chinese New Year seasonal effect, so we should not be paying too much attention to monthly data for a while,” he added.<\/p>\n According to Richard Martin, managing director of IMA Asia, the current global recovery isn’t “normal” and investors shouldn’t expect all of Asia’s export engine to fire up in a regular fashion.<\/p>\n “Traditionally, when the west recovers, [China] exports will get a lift from strong consumer driven recovery in the Europe and United States. But that’s not the case now. European consumers are still deleveraging, there’s a bit of shyness still there in the US consumers, so that means you don’t get a big factory run up,” Martin told CNBC.<\/p>\n “So I’m fine with where that export number was for china and I think we’ll just see it modestly lift through the first half of this year. Second half of this year, it should accelerate,” he added.<\/p>\n There have been concerns about the outlook of China’s economy, which is expected to record in 2013 its weakest growth since 1999.<\/p>\n