TORONTO – The loonie climbed Monday, boosted by better-than-expected export data out of China, and last week’s encouraging Canadian jobs figures.

The Canadian dollar was ahead 0.37 of a cent to 96.44 cents US.

Overnight, Chinese data showed that the country’s exports accelerated while inflation edged lower last month, raising hopes that the world’s second-largest economy will gradually recover from a painful slowdown.

It’s the latest sign that China is stabilizing after growth fell to a two-decade low of 7.5 per cent in the second quarter.

The loonie is still being helped by positive unemployment news from Friday, when Statistics Canada reported that the economy created 59,000 jobs last month. That exceeded expectations of about 20,000 positions but the growth was mainly for part-time employment.

The unemployment rate fell to 7.1 per cent in August from 7.2 per cent in July.

Commodity prices were mixed as the October crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 45 cents to US$110.08 a barrel.

While the positive Chinese data helped push gold prices ahead 80 cents to US$1,387.30 an ounce and December copper up two cents to $3.28 a pound.