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By CCTV correspondent Michelle Xing

The latest trade numbers show Chinese export growth slowed in December, while imports rose. Overall trade growth for 2013 missed the government's target, but only just.

Exports in December slowed to 4.3 percent year on year, from November's 12.7 percent. That was broadly inline with forecasts. Analysts¹ say the decline in growth was mainly due to a higher comparison base a year earlier. The biggest surprise though, was December's imports number. Imports grew 8.3 percent, beating predictions and up from the previous month's 5.3 percent. This suggests China's domestic demand is continuing to improve. This has led to a narrowing of the country's trade surplus to 25 billion US dollars in December.

For the whole of 2013, China's total trade gained 7.6 percent, surpassing 4 trillion US dollars for the first time. Exports grew 7.9 percent year on year while imports grew 7.3 percent.

In the meantime, trade surplus for 2013 reached close to 260 billion US dollars, an increase of 12.8%, the highest since the global financial crisis. But analysts say, the outlook for 2014 is expected to be brighter as global demand picks up.

"In general, we think that growth of China's foreign trade will not only see positive factors such as improvement of international demand and the domestic macroeconomic policies environment, but also restraining factors such as cost raise and intensified² trade friction³. If the international and domestic economy does not suffer from major risks, I think China's foreign trade will enter a stable stage of growth, and the quality and efficiency of foreign trade development is likely to be further improved," Zheng Yuesheng, spokesman of China's Customs Administration, says.

Uncertain global demand, a stronger yuan currency and rising labour costs have taken their toll⁴ on Chinese exporters, what shall we expect in 2014?

"I think the idea is that we're moving towards a much freer currency regime and one of the conditions that the Chinese will have is that things like trade surplus will eventually come down or flatten⁵ out from the high levels that they were at. And so the rebalancing of the economy is certainly an aim of the current leadership. What they want to do is spread the wealth a lot wider and make more people feel that they have participated in the economic growth in China," Mohammed Apabhai, department head of Apac Trading Strategies of Citigroup, says.

China's has pledged to maintain steady trade growth this year and further balance the trade structure by increasing imports of raw materials and energy products.

Chinese leaders have vowed⁶ to transform its economy from an investment and exports-led system to a more sustainable consumption-led one. To achieve that goal, policymakers have unveiled the boldest economic and social reforms in nearly three decades.

Breaking down to regions. Trade with the European Union edged up 2.1 percent year on year in 2013 while trade with the United States rose 7.5 percent compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, trade with Japan contracted 5.1 percent year on year.

Trade with emerging countries have been on the rise, indicating more sustainable growth going forward. China's trade with the ASEAN nations, its third-largest trading partner, rose 10.9 percent year on year to 443 billion U.S. dollars.