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The quality of the Chinese economy is improving, although the speed has slipped, said Huo Jianguo, president of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, a government think tank.

He said the first quarter's 7.7 percent GDP growth rate is "ideal" when the government is focusing more on structural reforms. China's GDP in the last quarter of 2012 increased by 7.9 percent year-on-year.

Warnings are rising from weak investment expectations, increasing credit pressure and a tough outside environment, which will bring more uncertainties in the short term, Huo said.

An effective solution is to strengthen development in the middle and eastern regions, to encourage opening-up and rebalance the regional economy, Huo said.

The first four months of this year saw China's foreign trade rise 14 percent from a year earlier to $1.33 trillion, with exports jumping 17.4 percent and imports increasing 10.6 percent year-on-year, yielding a trade surplus of $6 million, according to the General Administration of Customs.

Amid a slow world economic recovery, China's trade with the European Union edged down 1.3 percent year-on-year in the January-April period, while trade with the United States gained 9.4 percent year-on-year in the same period.

But analysts believe the January-April figure was overstated by speculative money disguised as trade payments chasing a rising yuan.

They predicted that trade growth in China is expected to slow in the following months as the foreign exchange regulator vowed to strengthen its scrutiny of export invoices, and impose tougher penalties on companies giving fake data.

China will continue to oppose trade protectionism and take the opening-up policy as one of the sustainable driving forces of economic development, Zhang said.

Non-financial foreign direct investment in China registered $38.34 billion in the first four months of this year, up 1.21 percent from a year ago, compared with a 3.7 percent decline throughout 2012, according to the Ministry of Commerce.