China, with frustrating predictability, has served up another February conundrum for the global economy, publishing data that confuse more than they clarify.

It is a ritual that plays out at the start of every year but with one crucial difference as time goes by: now, more than ever, China’s difficult-to-decipher numbers have the ability to hold companies and investors around the world in their thrall. There are widespread concerns about Chinese growth in the wake of its financial turbulence, but as yet there is little solid evidence of how the economy is actually faring.

The latest riddle comes in the form of China’s January trade numbers, published yesterday. Analysts had forecast them to be flat or even negative. Instead, they came in well above expectations, with exports up 10 per cent from a year earlier and imports up 10.6 per cent.

All else being equal, this would be taken to mean that both Chinese growth and global demand were a lot stronger than anticipated. Unfortunately, all else rarely is equal – and never is that truer than for Chinese economic data printed in February.

“We’re flying blind and nobody knows how to properly adjust this data,” said Stephen Green, head of China research with Standard Chartered. Then, with a chuckle: “We should all just take an extended holiday.”

The culprit for the confusion is the Chinese new year, which causes two problems.

First, because the week-long holiday is based on the lunar calendar, its timing changes from year to year, making for fraught comparisons. This year, the holiday began on the last day of January. In 2013 it began 10 days later [visa].

Many analysts had expected that the loss of one working day this January would weigh on China’s economic activity for the month, making it appear weaker whether assessed in year-on-year or month-on-month terms.

But after the upside surprise in the trade data, the exact opposite explanation was in vogue – namely, that the earlier timing of the holiday might in fact have inflated figures. “Today’s strong export report could have been boosted by a rush of shipments ahead of the Chinese new year,” economists with Barclays wrote in a note.

The second problem is that much of China grinds to a halt for the new year holiday, and not just for one week. With hundreds of millions of migrant labourers travelling home, many factories shut for the better part of a month and offices run at half-speed.

It is enough to confound statisticians. Rather than offer up skewed data, they wait until March to collate together the figures from January and February for retail sales, industrial output and fixed-asset investment.

Those combined figures for the first two months of the year are more reliable since they get around the problem of the timing of the new year holiday, but the delay does not make life easy for analysts or investors. It means that they need to rely on a tiny array of distorted data points – purchasing manager indices, bank loans, trade and inflation – to draw conclusions about the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

“This is the time to get out and do a little more tyre-kicking,” said Helen Qiao, an economist with Morgan Stanley.

Along with field trips to speak with companies, bankers and officials, she suggested checking “bottom-up” numbers such as shipping volumes and raw-material prices.

China’s headline data for January have so far pulled in different directions. Weak PMI surveys for the manufacturing and service sectors had stoked worries about Chinese growth – they were cited as one of the biggest reasons for the sell-off in global equities last month. However, yesterday’s strong trade data reinforced the more optimistic mood that has prevailed in recent days. Inflation and lending figures will be released later this week.

But it will not be until March, when a full set of cleaner data are published, that a sharper picture of the Chinese economy will emerge. Until then, it could well be a nervous wait.

Gold Brand Management Consulting Co.,Ltd.; Associates is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment,  business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting,Delaware company registration, Business registration in China,due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in emerging Asia.For further details or to contact the firm, please email gbd33@163.com, visit www.chinagbd.com,tel +86 20 61133120, or 020 61133120.