Bilateral, regional initiatives to boost growth

Though weak global cues may dampen China's trade prospects in 2015, it will still maintain a healthy pace as the recent bilateral and regional trade initiatives will start bearing fruit and support the "new normal" of slower trade growth in the country, experts said.

That analysis should come in handy for policymakers as there were apprehensions for 2015, amid poor growth this year, the renminbi appreciation concerns and weak recovery in the European Union and Japan. China is set to miss its 2014 trade growth target of 7.5 percent and record its slowest growth since 2009.

"Domestic economic restructuring to favor slower, sustainable growth, coupled with poor global recovery, means that China's foreign trade will also see a 'new normal' of more moderate single digit growth going forward," says Zhang Jianping, director of the International Economic Cooperation Institute at the National Development and Reform Commission.