China needs annual export growth of at least 15 percent to ensure stable economic expansion as the rate of domestic investment cools, the head of the trade ministry's think-tank said in comments published on Tuesday.

"We just can't tolerate the simultaneous fall in investment, consumption and exports," Huo Jianguo, the head of Ministry of Commerce's research unit, said in an interview with the Shanghai Securities News.

"A growth rate of 15 percent (in exports) is basically a benchmark and any growth below that would start to affect employment," Huo added.

China's leadership has pledged to stabilise exports and boost imports in 2012 to balance trade as part of efforts to rebalance the economy and insulate it from the effects of deteriorating external demand.

Many international economists believe China's growth has been fuelled by a reliance on investment spending, creating asset bubbles and over capacity problems that pose more serious structural challenges than shifting external trade conditions.

But Huo said concerns about falling exports were growing.

"In fact, the investment-driven model of 2009 has changed, exports are playing an incremental role in overall growth — so when export growth eases, people get nervous," he said.

Huo noted that at least 80 million jobs are related to exports — many of them held by poor rural migrant workers and so vital for the social stability prized by China's leadership.

Slowing exports were a net drag on China's overall rate of economic growth in the first nine months of the year, according to official data.

Annual export growth in November eased to 13.8 percent, the first time it had fallen below 15 percent since February, when shipments were interrupted by Chinese lunar new year holidays.

In the first 11 months of 2011, Chinese exports rose 21.1 percent from a year ago to $1.72 trillion. Huo forecast export growth of 22 percent in 2012.

Source: Reuters