WELLINGTON - A surge in arrivals from China drove a new annual record for visitors to New Zealand in the year ending January, the government statistics agency said Monday.

Visitor numbers were up 11 percent year on year to 3.54 million, according to Statistics New Zealand.

Visitor arrivals in the month of January were also up 11 percent year on year, hitting a new January record of 381,100.

"The strong increase in visitor arrivals in January 2017 coincided with the Chinese New Year," population statistics senior manager Peter Dolan said in a statement.

"Over 54,000 visitors from China arrived in New Zealand in January 2017."

Chinese visitor numbers in the month of January were up 32.4 percent year on year.

In the January year, Chinese visitor numbers were 13.8 percent up to 422,256, keeping China's rank as New Zealand's second biggest visitor market after Australia.