China's export grew 21% in January to 109.47 billion U.S. dollars compared with the same period of last year. Imports rose 85.5% to 95.31 billion U.S. dollars with trade surplus contracted 63.8% to 14.16 billion U.S. dollars. The total value of foreign trade posted a 44.4% growth in January 2010 year-on-year, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) announced.

The hefty increase, however, was due to a lower comparison basis a year ago when China's export sector was hard hit by the global financial crisis, as well as less working days as the Lunar New Year holiday fell in January last year, the administration said.

Compared with the last month of 2009, however, both import and export dropped significantly.  There can be several explanations for this, but the comparison with a year ago does not provide a complete picture.

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Despite an annual drop of 16% in exports in 2009, China overtook Germany as the world's largest exporter as the latter saw exports decrease by nearly a fifth, the biggest decline for the country in six decades.

The European Union and United States remained China's largest trading partners. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) surpassed Japan to be China's third largest as Sino-ASEAN trade rose 80% to 21.48 billion U.S. dollars after the China-ASEAN free trade area took effect on Jan. 1 this year.

Exports of machinery products added 27% year-on-year to 62.51 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for nearly 60% of the total monthly export volume. Exports of appliances and electrical products grew 33.1% year-on-year to 24.09 billion U.S. dollars.