"We believe that gradual recovery in the advanced economies, particularly the United States, the EU and Japan, will continue to support external trade in Malaysia," said Alliance Research chief economist Manokaran Mottain.
Despite the downside risks to China's growth, Manokaran said China, which just recently outlined a package of measures including railway spending and tax relief, could support its growth target of 7.5 per cent.
"We expect a more optimistic outlook for the Chinese economy in the second half of 2014, including its trade performance," he said in a report.
Manokaran expects exports to grow at a faster pace of 5 per cent this year from 2.4 per cent expansion recorded in 2013, propelled by the expected recovery in advanced economies.
In February, Malaysia's exports rose 12.3 per cent to RM58.91bil compared with a year earlier, outpacing market expectations of 10.6 per cent mainly due to stronger demand in electric and electronic products.
Stronger demand from the European Union, the US and Japan mitigated the slower growth in shipments to China.
Exports to the United States and the European Union (EU) increased by 8.4 per cent and 15.9 per cent, respectively.
Meanwhile, exports to China grew 23.6 per cent in February from 37.1 per cent in December.
The strong exports is positive for the country's trade balance.
"Malaysia will likely escape the twin deficit scenario at this juncture," said Malaysian Rating Corporation Bhd (MARC) chief economist Nor Zahidi Alias to StarBiz in an email reply.
Trade suplus in February rose to RM10.44bil in February, up 27.2 per cent from a year earlier and 64.2 per cent from the previous month, again beating expectations.
Despite the growth, Zahidi noted that the strengthening in import could pose risks to the current account balance in the medium term.
"Overall picture will depend on the strength of import, which if starts to strengthen more than exports, due to high import content of mega projects etc will exert some pressure on the current account balance," he said.
Malaysia's import in February rose 9.5 per cent to RM48.48bil from the same month last year, mainly due to a hike in the purchase of intermediate goods.