There are still "uncertainties" in the global market that could hinder export recovery, together with increasing domestic factors that had driven up production costs, he said.

But economists said the seasonal factor had largely affected the February trade figure, as Chinese exporters rushed to finish all the orders before the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.

The slump in February exports is merely "temporary and seasonal," said Liu Ligang, Head of Greater China Economics with the ANZ Bank, and he expected a strong rebound in exports in March.

Liu compared February's deficit with the previous one, when China witnessed the first monthly trade deficit in six years in March last year. But the trade deficit was short lived as exports rebounded in April.

Wang Qing, chief economist for Greater China with Morgan Stanley, said the February trade conditions shoud be reviewed together with the January figure.

The GAC figures had shown that exports grew 21.3 percent in the two-month period, reflecting "stable growth" in foreign trade, he said.

Rising imports partly due to higher international commodity prices, including crude oil and iron ore, had also attributed to the deficit said Li Jian, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, an affiliate of the Ministry of Commerce.

But more importantly, Li said, the deficit reflected a trend of declining trade surpluses, which was a result of China's foreign trade policy of "stabilizing exports, boosting imports while having a lower trade surplus."

"Overall, the country's imports growth is picking up while exports growth is slowing," he said.