China's trade surges as global economy recovers: media

China's imports and exports surged in March and the first quarter in a sign of the country's and world's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign media outlets reported as customs data was released yesterday.

The country's foreign trade jumped 29.2 percent on a yearly basis to 8.47 trillion yuan ($1.29 trillion) in the first quarter, thanks to robust demand due to rapid recovery in major economies.

Exports saw skyrocketing growth at 38.7 percent year-on-year to 4.61 trillion yuan in the first three months, while imports climbed to 3.86 trillion yuan, a 19.3 percent increase compared with the same period last year.

China's trade surge in March remains a sign that the global recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is well on track as vaccine rollouts around the world pick up pace, said a Bloomberg report on April 13.

According to Bloomberg, China has benefited from soaring global demand for medical goods and work-from-home equipment during the pandemic.

The latest data shows export momentum remained strong after record gains in February, a sign that the global rebound is helping spur demand in the world's second-largest economy, Bloomberg said.

"Export outperformance remains a theme in China's recovery," Peiqian Liu, an economist at Natwest Markets, told Bloomberg TV in an interview, adding that it was due to "a combination of global recovering demand as well as China's role in filling up the global supply chain gaps."

China's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic had concentrated on output as seen in strong exports numbers. But demand appears to be picking up now, said Paras Anand, Asia-Pacific chief investment officer at Fidelity International, to CNBC during an interview.

"As we're now moving into the recovery in China getting to a more mature level, we're starting to see consumption also picking up very strongly," said Anand.

China appeared to have largely contained the outbreak, and became the only major economy to register growth last year when it expanded by 2.3 percent last year, according to a CNBC report on April 13.

The country has set a growth target of more than 6 percent for 2021, while the International Monetary Fund expects the Asian giant to expand by 8.4 percent this year, the report said.