The province is also determined to make export of high-tech commodities account for 30 percent of the annual provincial export total.

Tang Bingquan, deputy governor of the province, said to meet that goal, the province would intensify efforts to implement the strategy of advancing foreign trade through science and technology and further raise the scientific and technological contents of exported commodities.

Customs statistics show that Guangdong had an annual average growth rate of 21.1 percent in export over the past two decades.

Last year alone, the province chalked up US$170.1 billion worth of imports and exports, up 21.2 percent from 1999 and accounting for 35.9 percent of the national total. Exports made up US$91.92 billion, up 18.3 percent, while imports were US$78.18 billion , a rise of 24.8 percent.

However, locally produced commodities, most of which are labor intensive products, have been facing serious challenges on the international market, which has caused a slowdown in the province’s export growth rate in the past years.

To meet the new challenges on the international market and to raise the competitiveness of “made in China" commodities in international markets, Guangdong has been carefully implementing the strategy of promoting foreign sales through science and technology since the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation put forward the strategy in early 1999.

Encouraging results have been made in this regard, and the province’s export of high-tech commodities, especially electronic products, has kept increasing rapidly, said Tang.

From 1995 to 1999, the province’s aggregate export total of high-tech commodities was US$40.2 billion, with the annual growth rate amounting to 41.5 percent.

In the first 11 months of last year, Guangdong exported US$15.41 billion worth of high-tech commodities, accounting for 18.3 percent of the province’s export total from January to November of 2000.

(People’s Daily 02/05/2001)