BEIJING, April 25 (Xinhua) -- China's oil exports began to climb again last month, hitting 220,000 tons, after dropping to zero in February, sources with the General Administration of Customs said on Wednesday.

    However, the export figure was still 83.2 percent lower than the figure for March last year.

    January's exports stood at only 300,000 tons, continuing a decline from last year when crude exports lingered at 500,000 to one million tons most months.

    Yang Weicai, deputy head of China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association, said crude exports had bottomed, mainly because of state trade policies to discourage foreign sales of crude and oil products.

    Yang said China's oil dependency had reached 40 percent. Short of oil to fuel the fast growing economy, the government started to restrict crude exports in 2004 and they had since declined.

    Since the end of last year, a string of policies have been promulgated to cap export of resources. A five-percent tariff has been levied on crude exports, while the tariff on crude imports was reduced from six to two percent.

    The international oil price slump -- from 78 U.S. dollars to 60U.S. dollars per barrel -- also contributed to the export decline in the first quarter this year, some analysts believed.

    But Yang disagreed, arguing China's crude exports were not directly related to international oil price changes, but rather to political factors.

    Some industry observers held that it was necessary for the government to encourage oil imports and discourage exports.

    Customs sources said China imported 13.9 million tons of crude oil last month, up 8.8 percent from the same month last year.

    The trade pattern is set to continue for the rest of the year, Han Xuegong, a senior consultant with China National Petroleum Company, was quoted as saying by China Daily.