China's exports slumped nearly two percent in April compared to the same month last year, as imports fell almost 11 percent, officials said Sunday, the latest sign of weakness in the world's second largest economy.

The key export sector has shown year-on-year declines in dollar terms for nine of the last 10 months as the country's economic growth has fallen to its slowest level in a quarter-century.

Sunday's figures from the state statistics bureau suggest an unexpected March export increase may have been a blip, and that meeting ambitious economic growth targets will be a challenge.

China exported about $173 billion worth of goods in April, the bureau said, while importing products worth $127 billion. As a result, the country's trade surplus rose to about $46 billion.

The bureau earlier gave figures in terms of China's yuan currency, which showed a modest rise in exports in April. The dollar figure diverged as the yuan has depreciated over the last year.

Beijing is attempting a difficult transition away from reliance on cheap exports and infrastructure investment towards hi-tech industry and consumer spending as its three-decade long growth model shows signs of wearing out.

But it is still targeting growth of 6.5 to 7 percent this year, a figure some analysts say can only be reached through an unsustainable rise in bank lending.

The trade data comes after a private survey indicated this week that Chinese factory activity weakened further in April.

The Purchasing Managers' Index by Caixin, which tracks activity in the country's factories and workshops, fell for the 14th consecutive month.

China's economy, a vital driver of global expansion, grew 6.9 percent last year. But its transition is proving bumpy and the growth slowdown has alarmed investors worldwide.

Chinese search giant's model 'misleading': regulator
Beijing (AFP) May 9, 2016 - Internet giant Baidu, China's equivalent of Google, must change how it displays search results, regulators said Monday, following an outcry over the death of a student whose family used it to seek a cancer cure.

The ruling by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) calls into question the business model of Baidu, which is quoted on the Nasdaq exchange in New York and has a market capitalisation of more than $60 billion, even after it fell heavily in the wake of the scandal.

Wei Zexi, 21, had already been diagnosed with a terminal soft tissue disease when his relatives used the search engine to find an experimental immunotherapy treatment at a Beijing hospital run by the armed police force.

Before he died, Wei denounced the firm online as "evil" and warned other cancer patients "not to be cheated" in comments that went viral, drawing an onslaught of criticism against Baidu.

"Baidu's mechanism for ranking paid results depends too heavily on price paid and does not clearly indicate paid results, as well as other problems," the CAC said in an article in its in-house newspaper.

The system "influenced the impartiality and objectivity of its search results, making it easy to mislead users, and must be immediately rectified".

In a response posted online, the Internet firm pledged to display "eye-catching" markers and warnings on advertised content and limit the proportion of paid search results to 30 percent per page.

Baidu also pledged to set up a fund of 1 billion yuan ($154 million) to compensate future victims of paid content.

During the investigation period it had removed 126 million paid results, from 2,518 medical institutions, from its searches, it said.

- 'Reexamine our responsibilities' -

"The death of Zexi incited a huge response from all of society, and has given Baidu great momentum, triggering all Baidu staff to reexamine our responsibilities as a search engine company," said Baidu senior vice president Xiang Hailong.

The company's chief executive Robin Li, who is China's fourth-richest man worth $12.6 billion according to the latest Bloomberg ranking, was summoned by regulators as part of the probe, reports said.

Baidu is often seen as China's equivalent of Google -- although the US firm is hardly a direct competitor as it is blocked on the mainland and terminated most of its operations in 2010 after controversy over the country's online controls.

Search services accounted for nearly 84 percent of Baidu's total revenues last year, the company's annual report showed.

Most of the business came from customers "who pay us a fee based on click-throughs for priority placement of their links in the search results", it said.

Baidu's lucrative online marketing business has been hugely controversial.

The company came under fire this year for selling the right to manage an online haemophilia forum to an unlicensed private hospital, which state media said used the platform for self-promotion and deleted comments that challenged its credentials.

In 2011, Baidu was forced to apologise after China's state television reported fraudulent advertisements had been posted on its platforms, ranging from phoney airline tickets to unlicensed pharmaceutical adverts.