ASEAN overtook Japan as China's third largest trade partner in January after the China-ASEAN free trade area was launched on Jan. 1.
Exports of machinery grew 29.4 percent to 40.73 billion U.S. dollars and exports of appliances and electrical products added 32.4 percent to 46.05 billion U.S. dollars. The two sectors accounted for 58.3 percent of total export value in the first two months.
China ended 15 months of declining exports in December last year on the back of government policy incentives such as tax rebates.
The country overtook Germany as the world's largest exporter despite an annual drop of 16 percent in exports in 2009, as the latter saw exports decrease by nearly a fifth, the biggest decline for Germany in six decades.
Despite strong gains in the past three months, Commerce Minister Chen Deming said Saturday China's exports may need two or three years to return to the pre-crisis level in 2008, as "global recovery is still haunted by uncertainties."
"Now it is still too early to say exports will see full-year growth this year," he said on the sidelines of the annual legislative session.
Strong exports also intensified international pressure on China to strengthen the yuan, or renminbi, as major trade partners stepped up criticism of China's controls on its currency to gain artificial price advantages.
Last Friday, Premier Wen Jiabao said China would keep the yuan exchange rate "basically stable" at an "appropriate and balanced level" this year.
Chen said exchange rate was part of a nation's domestic macro-policy, and the issue should not be politicized.
U.S. President Barack Obama vowed in early February to "get much tougher" with China in trade disputes and on the exchange rates, which he believed had put U.S. companies at a disadvantage.
Last Saturday, Su Ning, deputy governor of China's central bank, said stronger yuan could not address the Sino-U.S. trade imbalance, given the yuan had gained around 21 percent since July 2005, when the government unpegged the yuan from the U.S. dollar.
