China will further upgrade its trade structure in the next five years to gradually shift from a quantity-intensive growth pattern to quality-intensive pattern.

The move targets at changing the imbalance of exporting labor-intensive products and importing high-value-added equipment and energy resources, said Mu Xinsheng, commissioner with China's General Administration of Customs.

China is still facing an imbalance in its trade structure, with a high proportion of labor-intensive products and low proportion of technology-intensive products in exports, the official said in an interview with the Economic Daily.

Great progress has been achieved in China's trade structure adjustment, with the proportion of high-tech product exports increasing 4.9 times in 2005, accounting for 31.7 percent of China's total processing trade.

To achieve the target of 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars total trade volume in 2010, the customs should give priority to further upgrading the trade structure so as to export more high-tech products in the next five years, Mu said.

In addition, the customs will further improve its import and export supervision system, tighten its fight against intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement and smuggling cases in the next five years, in a bid to create a better trade environment in China.

(Source: Xinhua)