BEIJING, March 7 -- Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng said Friday that China is confident of achieving its 7.5-percent growth target in foreign trade this year, with an improving global economic environment and competitiveness among domestic enterprises.

"International demand will rise slowly as the global economy has kept recovering, especially that of developed countries," said Gao at a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature.

Although the economy of emerging markets is slowing down, the fundamentals are sound enough to tackle the existing difficulties and make their economy take a favorable turn in 2014, he explained.

Chinese foreign trade enterprises have made effective internal adjustments since the global financial crisis and that innovation has improved their competitiveness, according to Gao.

"In comprehensive analysis of the international market, we are fully confident of achieving our target of 7.5 percent growth in foreign trade in 2014," the minister said.

China's total exports and imports surpassed 4 trillion U.S. dollars for the first time to reach 4.16 trillion U.S. dollars in 2013, up 7.6 percent year on year, customs data have shown.

The growth rate, however, is slightly lower than the government's full-year target of 8 percent, published in the beginning of 2013.