Officials told CNN that the slump will be difficult to shake off in 2024.
China is struggling to stem deflationary pressures.
China, the world's second-largest economy, witnessed its consumer price inflation in 2023 touching its weakest point in 14 years.
The consumer price index for December improved slightly from November, but was down 0.3% on the same month in 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. For 2023 as a whole, prices were up by just 0.2 percent over 2022, the weakest reading since 2009, when CPI fell by 0.7 percent as a global recession hit, reported CNN.
Exports measured in US dollar terms stood at $3.38 trillion in 2023, down by 4.6 percent compared to the year before. In 2022, Chinese exports increased by 7% from the year earlier, the American news channel reported.
In 2016, China registered a decline in overseas shipments when exports dropped by 7.7 percent.