Despite struggling for much of the year to maintain its GDP growth rates, the Chinese government reported much higher-than-expected export and import data for September, reports the Financial Times.

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According to official data, China's exports surged at their fastest in more than a year and a half, jumping 15.3 percent from September of last year. At the same time, imports into China also rose, at a clip of 7 percent compared to the same month the previous year.

The strong showing was at least partly attributed to a relatively weak September in 2013. Nevertheless, economists took the data as positive news for China.

"The September trade data suggest that foreign demand remains healthy," Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economist for Capital Economics told the FT. However, he cautioned that "although import growth also rebounded, this should not be taken as a sign that domestic demand growth is turning a corner."

It was only last week that the World Bank cut its forecast for Chinese growth to 7.4 percent for 2014, and 7.2 percent for 2015, however, this was before the September trade data came out. Haibin Zhu, chief China economist at JPMorgan, told the BBC that September's import/export data should lessen concerns about the strength of the Chinese economy.

"The big implication is that imports are much stronger," Zhu said. "So no matter what the reason I think it will cool off a bit of the concern about domestic weakness bringing down this activity."

TagsChinese imports, Chinese exports