BEIJING — China reported Monday a smaller-than-expected trade surplus in January as an increase in imports exceeded growth in exports for the fourth month in a row. But analysts said the surplus had fallen partly because of the Lunar New Year holidays and was likely to rise again.

Imports rose 51 percent in January compared with a year earlier, partly because of rising commodity prices, economists said. Exports jumped 37.7 percent, at least partly because companies accelerated shipments before the Lunar New Year at the beginning of this month.

The sustained strong growth in exports in recent months “is consistent with the recovery of the global economy,” said Yu Song, an economist with Goldman Sachs in Beijing.

The monthly trade surplus was $6.5 billion, less than analysts had predicted and about half the amount reported for December. But economists at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in Hong Kong predicted that the surplus would climb after the holiday and continue to create pressure on the Chinese government to speed up the appreciation of the renminbi.

The United States and some other nations contend that China holds down the renminbi’s value to bolster exports and limit imports. Although the trade surplus has shrunk as a percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product for three years in a row, the surplus remains large. The U.S. trade deficit with China was a record $273 billion last year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Chinese data show a much smaller surplus because the figures do not include goods shipped by way of Hong Kong.

At a conference in Beijing on Sunday, some Chinese economists called for a faster appreciation of the currency to create a more balanced economy. The renminbi has risen 3.6 percent against the dollar since China loosened controls last June. The U.S. Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, said last month that because China’s inflation rate was higher than that of the United States, the renminbi was effectively rising at an annualized rate of about 10 percent against the dollar.

The Chinese central bank continues to sell renminbi to slow the currency’s rise. At the seminar Sunday, Lu Mai, secretary general of the state-funded China Development Research Foundation, said the government should “deepen currency reform” over the next five years. The stronger currency has not hurt Chinese exports and the renminbi remains undervalued, although by less than 10 percent, he said.

Lu Feng, a Peking University economist, said a stronger currency would help to curb inflation — an argument also made by Mr. Geithner and other U.S. officials. The Chinese consumer price index climbed 4.6 percent last year.

China has been battling rising prices by raising interest rates and limiting bank loans. Some analysts are predicting that China will report a higher inflation rate in data to be released Tuesday — a fresh sign that the economy continues to overheat despite those efforts.

Yi Gang, vice governor of the People’s Bank of China, the Chinese central bank, said at the seminar that the renminbi was at the right level against the dollar. But he said it might strengthen further.

“The renminbi will definitely fluctuate in the future according to market ups and downs and productivity change,” he said, according to hexun.com, a Chinese financial Web site.

Jing Zhang contributed research.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/business/global/15yuan.html?_r=1&ref=china