Foreign trade in the world's second largest economy rose 15.7 percent from a year earlier in April, compared with the 12.1-percent growth in March and the 13.4-percent growth in the first quarter, the General Administration of Customs said on Wednesday.

The April pace was the fastest since November 2011 except for holiday-distorted monthly growth in the January-February periods.

China's exports in April registered $187.06 billion, an increase of 14.7 percent year-on-year, higher than the 10-percent growth in March, while imports jumped 16.8 percent year-on-year to $168.9 billion, the fastest pace since November 2011 except for holiday-distorted monthly growth in the January-February periods. They created a trade surplus of $18.16 billion in April.

The first four months of this year saw foreign trade go up 14 percent from a year earlier with exports up 17.4 percent year-on-year and imports up 10.6 percent.

"The pickup of both exports and imports in April trade figures basically meet our predictions. We believe the mainland's absurd trade growth with Hong Kong has been normalized and April trade figures basically reflected the real picture," said Yang Weixiao and Sheng Xu, analysts at Lianxun Securities, in a research note.

"The following months of this year will see a faster pace in imports than exports and overall trade will maintain a growth of 10 to 15 percent."