Taiwan's export orders in December surged by a record 52.6 percent from a year earlier on strong demand for information technology and communications products, the economic ministry said Wednesday. Taiwanese companies received orders worth 31.7 billion US dollars last month, a rise of 10.9 billion US dollars from a year earlier, the ministry said in a statement.

It was the highest growth rate since comparable records began in 1984, the ministry said. The ministry expected the high growth rate to continue in the months ahead as the exports emerge from last year's lows "when the world was knocked severely by the worst economic crisis in many decades," an official said.

Orders for information and communications products - the main export items of the tech-savvy island economy - increased 61.5 percent year-on-year to 3.1 billion dollars in December, the ministry said. Export orders in November jumped 37.11 percent year-on-year to 31.26 billion dollars, earlier data showed.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010