LONDON -- Exports have stoked China's rapid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the British newspaper Financial Times reported Monday.

China's foreign trade continued to pick up in November with notable growth and improved structure, official data showed Monday. The country's foreign trade expanded 7.8 percent year-on-year last month, with exports jumping 14.9 percent year-on-year in Chinese yuan terms. Imports dipped 0.8 percent from a year ago, the General Administration of Customs said.

In the first 11 months, China's foreign trade of goods totaled 29.04 trillion yuan ($4.44 trillion), up 1.8 percent year-on-year, accelerating from an increase of 1.1-percent in the first 10 months, the administration said in a statement.

The FT report said China's export in November increased at the fastest rate since February 2018, well beyond the economists' estimate of 12 percent.

"While China's trade performance stands to benefit from a wider global recovery," the newspaper said: "the country's export boom has been supported by voracious international appetite for products resulting from the pandemic and its associated lockdowns, such as personal protection equipment and electronics products."

Tommy Wu at a British think tank Oxford Economics said China's near-term export outlook remains positive given strong new export orders. A return to global economic growth should underpin China's export growth in 2021.

Meanwhile, Tommy Wu said China's goods imports should stay strong thanks to the domestic recovery. As Oxford Economics' "recovery tracker" shows, China's domestic demand rose sharply in October.

"This was still largely driven by investment, although real retail sales also gained pace. We expect growth to shift towards household consumption and corporate investment in 2021, away from infrastructure and real estate investment." Wu said.

China's economic recovery picked up steam in the third quarter as activities normalized amid effective control of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Chinese government's sweeping efforts to stimulate demand and consumption, according to official data.

China's gross domestic product expanded 4.9 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2020, faster than the 3.2-percent growth seen in the second quarter, data from China's National Bureau of Statistics showed.