GERMAN exports rose by a healthy 9.2 percent on the month in May as an improving global economy stoked demand, while imports surged by an even stronger 14.8 percent, official data showed yesterday.

Germany, the world's second-biggest exporter after China, exported goods and services worth 77.5 billion euros (US$97.7 billion) in May, the Federal Statistical Office said. Imports totaled 67.7 billion euros.

The monthly rise in exports beat economists' forecasts of a 4 percent climb. The month-on-month rise in imports was the strongest since the yardstick was introduced in 1990.

Exports were up 28.8 percent on the year ?? the strongest rise in 10 years. Imports rose 34.3 percent, the steepest climb since 1989.

Germany's export strength traditionally has been the main motor of the country's economy, Europe's biggest, which has settled into a modest recovery in the past year.

It has been helped this year by recovering demand, particularly in emerging Asian economies, and by the euro's considerable decline against the dollar.

The large increase in imports likely was driven mostly by demand for so-called intermediate goods used in manufacturing, said Andreas Rees, an economist at UniCredit in Munich.

That would bode well because it signals that "the underlying momentum in the industrial sector is still strong," Rees said.

Still, he said that leading indicators have now peaked and he expects full-year export growth to slow to about 4 percent in 2011.