The figure was more than double the 4.6 percent predicted in a Bloomberg survey, though imports during the same period fell 4.3 percent, Beijing's General Administration of Customs said.

China's top leaders last month set an ambitious annual growth target of around five percent, vowing to make domestic demand its main economic driver.

But its fragile recovery faces fresh woes from Trump's trade war, with huge tariffs kicking in for most Chinese goods this month.

Beijing and Washington have been locked in a fast-moving, high-stakes game of brinkmanship since Trump launched a global tariff assault that particularly targeted Chinese imports.

Tit-for-tat exchanges have seen US levies imposed on China rise to 145 percent, and Beijing setting a retaliatory 125 percent band on US imports.

The US side appeared to dial down the pressure slightly on Friday, listing tariff exemptions for smartphones, laptops, semiconductors and other electronic products of which China is a major source.

Beijing said Monday that the United States remained the largest single overseas destination for Chinese shipments in January-March, amounting to $115.6 billion.

"The strong export data reflect frontloading of trade before the US tariffs were announced," Zhiwei Zhang, President and Chief Economist at Pinpoint Asset Management said in a note.

"China's exports will likely weaken in coming months as the US tariffs skyrocketed," he added.

"The uncertainty of trade policies is extremely high."

And the world's second-largest economy continues to struggle with sluggish consumption and a prolonged debt crisis in its property sector.

Beijing announced a string of aggressive measures to reignite the economy last year, including cutting interest rates, cancelling restrictions on homebuying, hiking the debt ceiling for local governments and bolstering support for financial markets.

But after a blistering market rally last year fuelled by hopes for a long-awaited "bazooka stimulus", optimism waned as authorities refrained from providing a specific figure for the bailout or fleshing out any of the pledges.