China's foreign trade has exceeded US$1.4 trillion, an increase of 23.2 percent from 2004, with US$762 billion of imports and US$660 billion of exports, 28.4 percent and 17.6 percent up respectively, according to the latest statistics announced by the customs.

An editorial in People's Daily on Tuesday commends that with intensified trade frictions between China and its trading partners and the mounting pressure of RMB's appreciation which likewise put more pressure to exports, China's foreign trade still achieved such a good performance. It's really a hard-won harvest.

Nevertheless, China's foreign trade is still large in quantity, but not strong in quality. The editorial goes on to explain.

Although the processing trade accounted for as much as 48.6 percent in the country's foreign trade in 2005, most of them were weak in brand value, innovation and high-tech-content, making light profit margin with intensive labor.

China's 115 billion US dollars of textile export in 2005 generated more than 90 billion US dollars of surplus. The export came from 20 billion pieces of apparel and an enormous amount of textile materials. That means China has offered 3.7 pieces of clothing to everyone in the world except Chinese. A piece of Chinese apparel on the world market was priced less than 4 US dollars on average.

China's export, therefore, largely depends on its cheap labor cost and product prices, which have driven the export growth on the one hand and sparked trade disputes on the other. Chinese products have encountered restrictions in some countries from time to time.

It is clear that after years of reform and opening-up endeavor China should concentrate more on quality improvement of its foreign trade than on the growth of quantity. To this end, self-developed brands will be the only cornerstone for any attempt of making presence and a strong foothold on the international market.

Encouraging, supporting and strengthening self-developed hi-tech brands should be given top priority to sustain the growth of foreign trade. It is on the basis of technological innovation that a more reasonable export structure can be realized.

The editorial says this is not only the right approach to address trade disputes and improve China's international competitiveness, but also the only way for China to grow from a "big" trading nation to a "strong" trading nation.

Editor: Yan