China's exports and imports rose in April but missed analysts' expectations, as domestic and foreign demand faltered and commodity prices fell.

Official data showed on Monday that April exports rose 14.3 percent from a year earlier to 1.24 trillion yuan (180 billion US dollars), while imports expanded 18.6 percent to 979.1 billion yuan (141.8 billion US dollars), leaving a surplus of 262.3 billion yuan.

In the first four months, the value of foreign trade totaled 8.4 trillion yuan (1.2 trillion US dollars), up 20.3 percent from the same period last year. Analysts were expecting China's trade surplus to have widened to 35.50 billion US dollars in April from March's 23.93 billion US dollars. 

Foreign trade is expected to face a better environment in 2017 compared with the past two years. Even though April data was below expectations, Huang Songping, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs (GAC) was confident in this year’s performance.

"In the first four months, China's exports and imports continued the stabilizing and upturning trend from the second half of last year. The growth has achieved two-digit annual increase in each month," he said.

‍The EU, US, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Japan were the major trading partners of China in the first four months, and China's exports to the EU, US and ASEAN occupied over 40 percent of the country's total exports value.

China's exports to countries along the Belt and Road Initiative also increased rapidly, according to data from the customs bureau.

"In the first four months, China's exports and imports to the Belt and Road countries was 2.27 trillion yuan ‍(0.3 trillion US dollars), up 25.1 percent, 4.8 percentage points higher than the overall foreign trade growth rate in the same period, and occupied 26.9 percent of the total foreign trade value," Huang noted.

Exports by private companies increased significantly in the period from January to February, while electro-mechanical and labor-intensive products were still the major goods exported.