Last month's exports totalled 90.5 billion dollars, down 17.5 percent from the same month a year ago, customs authorities reported.

"Such a steep fall in exports is very rare historically," said Su Chang, a Beijng-based economist with think tank CEB Monitor Group.

The most that exports had ever fallen over the past 10 years was 10.8 percent in January 1999, according to official data available to AFP.

Figures for earlier years were not accessible.

The decline was part of even larger changes in global trade flows, as major economies along the Pacific Rim saw demand for their goods decline dramatically in once-voracious markets in Europe and North America.

"Exports in Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Japan have all posted large drops. China is basically in the same supply chain with these countries," said Wang Qing, a Hong Kong-based economist with Morgan Stanley.

An estimated 20 million workers have lost their jobs in recent months in China, as factories along the eastern seaboard have closed in massive numbers.

The drop in exports followed declines of 2.8 percent in December and 2.2 percent in November compared to the previous year, the first time in seven years that Chinese exports had fallen.

China's trade surplus remained high last month at 39.1 billion dollars, a rise of 102 percent from the same month in 2008, customs said.

However, this was mainly the result of an even steeper drop in imports, which plunged 43.1 percent year-on-year, according to customs data.

"The sharp contraction in imports reflects slowing domestic investment and lower demand... and likely signals continuing export weakness in the future," Jing Ulrich, head of China equities at JP Morgan, said in a report on the data.

China's economy expanded by nine percent in 2008, dipping into single-digit territory for the first time in six years.

This year could be even worse, with the World Bank predicting economic growth in China at 7.5 percent, the lowest level in 19 years.

In a bid to reverse this trend, the Chinese government has unveiled a four-trillion-yuan (580-billion-dollar) stimulus package, its largest in history.

It has also taken action to aid individual sectors, including tax incentives for textile exporters, who employ an estimated 20 million people.

The weakening in the trade statistics also reflected a general reduction in activity caused by the Lunar New Year holiday period, the biggest festival of the year, which began in January.

"The sharp slump in both inbound and outbound trade was likely exacerbated by the Chinese New Year holiday," said Ulrich.

If the Lunar New Year holiday was taken out of the equation, January exports would actually have been up by 6.8 percent, the Xinhua news agency said, citing customs. It did not explain how it arrived at this figure.

January's trade figures were unlikely to cause any major change in China's exchange rate either way, analysts argued.

"Given the weak export figures, it is impossible for the yuan to further appreciate," said Morgan Stanley's Wang.

"It is not very likely for it to depreciate either because the trade surplus is still big. If it did depreciate ... (China) would probably be accused of trade protectionism and cause enormous repercussions that China would have to consider."

China's currency, seen by American and European critics as artificially low, could be the object of new controversy under US President Barack Obama.

Last month, Obama's pick for Treasury chief Timothy Geithner used Senate hearings to call China a currency manipulator, triggering a mini-spat with Beijing.

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