China's trade performance in the month of February turned out to be worse than most economists and analysts had anticipated, with exports declining to the lowest since May 2009.  

The trade figures released on Tuesday shows that the country's export fell by 25.4 percent percent in February from a year earlier, while imports dropped by 13.8 percent in the last month.     

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Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted that China's exports will slide by 12.5 percent and expected imports will fall by 10 percent in February.

The latest data also included trade figures in Yuan denominated terms, which showed that exports in February fell 20.6 percent and imports by 8.0 percent, leaving the country with a trade surplus of 209.5 billion Yuan ($32.2 billion) for the month.

The latest trade figures comes just a week after China released its Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), which showed that factory activites in the month of February contracted at the fastest rate in four years.  

Some analysts claim the week long New Year holidays in February may have dampened the country's trade performance and factory activites. There are high expectations, among these analysts, that the country's trade and PMI figures will rebound in the month of March.   

Amid the slowing economy, China's leadership announced over the past weekend at National People's Congress that they are slashing the country's growth target for 2016. However, the leaders voiced assured that economy is still under control.

China's top economic planner Xu Shaoshi on Sunday said that China's economy is not heading for hard landing or tough times despite the ongoing slowdown.           

The world's second largest economy is currently facing its worst economic crisis in over two decades. The slowdown in China's economy has many global financial leaders worrying, with many arguing that a prolonged slowdown in China may drag down global economic growth in the long term.    

TagsChinese Economy, Chinese Trade, Chinese export