However, dire figures for exports in January (a fall of 4.4% compared with December) aroused fears that the hoped-for boom in exports will be stillborn.
And the slackening pace of inventory rebuilding will curb import growth, because stockbuilding is the component of demand that is hungriest for imports.Moreover, the overall figures for exports mask a striking divergence between goods and services.
Figures for exports, sales and production were also bogus.
This is studied in terms of percentage figures for exported electricity to the grid.
Other forms of commerce with China don't show up in the figures for U.S. exports.
But the figures for December exports suggest that the economy may finally be starting to rebound.
Look again at China's trade figures for ICT: exports amounted to almost $300 billion in 2006, the highest in the world.
These data were taken from the figures for bilateral exports (FOB free on board).
Monthly trade figures for July showed exports growing at a 14% annual rate, whereas imports grew by 5%.
But its figures for inventories and exports were notably better than expected, meaning that downward revisions would not be especially surprising.
The country is a statistical haze, but the trade figures for last month with exports 2% lower than in November 2007 and imports 18% down were shocking.
