THE country’s export engine kicked into higher gear in September, producing a record trade surplus with the United States.

Analysts said last month’s strong export growth — which might indicate U.S. tariffs are not biting much yet — is unlikely to be sustained.

September exports rose 14.5 percent from a year earlier, the fastest pace since February, the customs data showed. That was well above August’s 9.8 percent and a poll forecast of 8.9 percent.

“The big picture is the Chinese exports have so far held up well in the face of escalating trade tensions and cooling global growth, most likely thanks to the competitiveness boost provided by a weaker yuan,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics.

“With global growth likely to cool further in the coming quarters and U.S. tariffs set to become more punishing, the recent resilience of exports is unlikely to be sustained.”

China’s surplus with the United States was US$34.13 billion in September, surpassing the record of US$31.05 billion in August.

The export data has been surprisingly resilient to tariffs, possibly because companies ramped up shipments before broader and stiffer U.S. duties went into effect, raising concerns about a sharper drop in export strength once all tariffs kick in.

“The front-loading impact is quite obvious to me,” said Betty Wang, senior China economist at ANZ in Hong Kong.

She cited a jump in exports of electrical machinery — the biggest export item from China to the United States — as a sign exporters might have pushed out shipments ahead of implementation of the latest tariffs on US$200 billion in Chinese exports.

Along with electrical machinery, exports for textiles, furniture and chips all rose faster than in the previous month, the customs data showed.(SD-Agencies)