Dhaka, Nov. 8 -- China's exports fell in October for the first time in eight months, official data showed Friday, as trade tensions flared in the weeks before Chinese President Xi Jinping met US counterpart Donald Trump.

Shipments dropped 1.1 percent year on year, missing a Bloomberg forecast of a 2.9 percent rise.

Imports in the same month rose 1.0 percent, China's General Administration of Customs said. That was well off September's reading and short of the 2.7 percent climb estimated in the Bloomberg forecast.

China and the United States reached a detente in their trade war after Xi and Trump met in South Korea at the end of October.

That put a precarious pause on months of tit-for-tat measures between the economic and technologica...