EXPORTS rose 19.8 per cent last month over January last year, kicking off 1993 with an another strong surge that economists say could top last year's robust 20.8 per cent growth.
The depreciation of the yuan, coupled with a recovery of sorts in the United States, will oil the way for a continued push of re-exports from China through Hongkong, economists say.
S.G. Warburg chief regional economist Enzio von Pfeil said: ''A continued, even if somewhat bumpy, recovery in the US suggests that things will continue bubbling along quite nicely.
''We think the yuan will continue to fall, so we can still sell cheaply into these third markets, despite recession, because these goods are still quite competitive.'' Figures from the Census and Statistics Department released yesterday show imports grew 13.3 per cent last month from a year earlier to $63.35 billion.
Retained imports slid 4.7 per cent.
A government spokesman dismissed this as a December bottle-neck of import shipments ahead of the Lunar New Year.
But at Peregrine Brokerage, senior economist Vincent Chan linked the slide in retained imports to a slowdown in retail sales, which were partially tailing off on the back of a drop in car sales from unsustainable levels early last year.