China's economy stable, trade negative

China's economy may have stabilized over the past month but its trade is likely to stay negative, analysts said ahead of the country's release of economic data for April this week.

"We expect the upcoming April data to show growth momentum stabilizing with the help of a 'mini-stimulus' and a modestly improving export outlook," said Wang Tao, an economist at UBS.

Chang Jian, a Barclays economist, also said there will be improvement in April data given the government's supportive measures announced in mid-March.

The Consumer Price Index, the main gauge of inflation, may grow about 2 percent in April, compared with a 2.4 percent rise a month earlier, due to falling prices of food.

Industrial production and fixed-asset investment may continue to expand at around 9 percent and 17 percent respectively, analysts said.

However, exports and imports growth may continue to be negative in April after they dropped in March.

Wang projected China's exports to dip 0.5 percent from a year earlier, and imports to contract 4 percent. Chang, meanwhile, said exports will shed 4 percent and imports will fall 1 percent.

In March, China's exports shed 6.6 percent and imports lost 11.3 percent, worse than expected, as the government boosted efforts to fight speculative money inflow as well as a high base a year earlier.

In the first quarter, China's trade fell 1 percent from a year earlier to US$965.8 billion, with exports off 3.4 percent and imports up 1.6 percent.