Iron ore and steel prices may not take off even with a massive infrastructure investment in China.

China's exports fell 11.2 percent on-year in January, while imports declined 18.8 percent, clocking far bigger slides than expected by analysts.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a 1.9 percent drop in January exports, and a 0.8 percent drop in imports, after China's exports fell 1.4 percent in December from a year earlier and imports slid 7.6 percent .



China's trade surplus came in at $63.3 billion in January, against analysts' expectations of a $58.85 billion surplus.

Separately, yuan-denominated data showed exports fell 6.6 percent in January and imports dropped 14.4 percent from a year ago. That left the country with a trade surplus of 406.2 billion yuan for the month.

China's economic growth rate slowed to a 25-year low of 6.9 percent in 2015, as the world's second-largest economy continues to shift away from its manufacturing roots.

The economy grew 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 from the same period last year, official data showed in January.

To counter slowing growth, China's policy makers have taken a slew of easing measures, including interest rate and reserve requirement ratio cuts from the central bank.

