China's export growth picked up pace in September, buoyed by manufacturers finding buyers in markets beyond the United States as a tariff deal with US President Donald Trump remained elusive while investors grappled with the latest salvoes in their trade war.

Export growth expanded 8.3 percent in September from a year earlier in dollar value terms, while imports grew 7.4 percent.

For the first nine months of the year, total goods imports and exports in yuan-denominated terms rose to 33.61 trillion yuan, up four percent year-on-year, official data showed on Monday.

That growth rate represents an acceleration from the increase of 3.5 percent seen in the first eight months of the year, according to the General Administration of Customs.

Outbound shipments were expected to have risen an annual six percent, according to a poll of economists, up from a 4.4 percent gain in August. Imports were forecast to have grown 1.5 percent, against a 1.3 percent increase previously.

Its trade surplus with the United States stood at US$208.63 billion for the nine-month period and US$22.82 billion for September.

No other country comes close to matching US consumption power, which once absorbed over US$400 billion of Chinese goods each year. But policymakers are banking on factory owners boosting sales to Asia, Africa and Latin America to offset the trade curbs and keep the US$19 trillion export-orientated economy on track to hit an official annual growth target of around five percent. (Reuters/Xinhua)