BEIJING - China looks unlikely to meet the 10-percent growth goal for foreign trade set early this year due to the European debt crisis and shrinking external demand, Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming said Friday.

The pessimistic prediction by the minister came at a panel discussion on the report by Hu Jintao to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

"Even though our year-on-year export growth rate rebounded slightly to 9.9 percent in September and 11 percent in October, it remains very difficult for us to achieve the 10-percent foreign trade growth target for the whole year," Chen said at the panel discussion open to the press.

The failure, if eventuates, will be a setback for China's foreign trade ambition, although the difficulties were forecast in March this year when Premier Wen Jiabao said in his government work report that China aimed to increase exports and imports by around 10 percent year-on-year in 2012.

The targeted foreign trade growth is a sharp slowdown from the 22.5 percent year-on-year increase last year when China became the world's second-largest importer after it took over Germany as the world's biggest exporter in 2009.

A weak recovery in demand temporarily boosted China's exports and imports in September thanks to supportive policies at home and abroad.

Exports rose 9.9 percent year on year to 186.35 billion U.S. dollars in September, compared with 2.7 percent posted in August, according to figures released by the General Administration of Customs (GAC).

Imports ended three months of consecutive drops in September and rose 2.4 percent from a year earlier to 158.68 billion U.S. dollars. The country's total foreign trade went up 6.3 percent year on year to 345.03 billion U.S. dollars in September and expanded 6.2 percent year on year to 2.84 trillion U.S. dollars in the first nine months, GAC data showed.

In January-September, trade with the European Union, China's largest trade partner, fell 2.7 percent year on year to 410.99 billion U.S. dollars, a wider loss than the 1.9-percent decline seen in the first eight months, the figures showed.

Chen said the ministry has readjusted the goal and reported to the State Council, aiming only to keep China's share in global trade unchanged this year.