China's foreign trade rose to 3.4 percent in 2014, a customs official reported.
The country's exports posted a 6.1-percent increase and imports grew by 0.4 percent last year.
This improvement is anticipated because the government has taken another round of decisive measures to upgrade the industrial structure and increase trade with more emerging markets through new routes, Zheng Yuesheng, spokesman for the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said.
Exports increased 4.9 percent to 14.3 trillion yuan in 2014, while imports fell 0.6 percent to 12.04 trillion yuan.
The foreign trade surplus widened to 2.35 trillion yuan, an increase of 45.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the GAC.
China foreign trade in Dec. 2014 hit an unexpected value of 2.49 trillion yuan ($2.32 trillion).
Trade with the United States, China's second-biggest trade partner, rose by 5.4 percent year-on-year to 3.41 trillion yuan, while trade with Hong Kong declined by 7.2 percent to 2.31 trillion yuan, China Daily reported.
"A slowing recovery of the global economy, weak domestic investment and demand, and falling commodity prices are the major reasons behind the weak foreign trade growth in 2014," Zheng said at a news conference held by the State Council Information Office.
He added that geopolitics, fluctuation of global financial markets, and declining demand in Europe and Japan contributed to the reduction of Chinese exports last year.
"Even though the export share of China's traditional labor-intensive sectors dropped for certain periods last year, this doesn't mean that these businesses have lost their advantage in the global market," Zhao Zhongxiu, a trade professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, pointed out.