US consumers believe Chinese products have the second best value in the world, only after the American goods, a recently released survey shows.

The survey, conducted by New York-based GfK Roper, a market research firm serving consumer goods companies, found that 26 percent of US consumers believe Chinese-made products have the best value, up from 9 percent in a comparable survey in 1996.

Some 45 percent of consumers said they believe American products to be the best value, while Japan, Mexico, Germany ranked behind the US and China on consumers' perceptions.

About 10 percent of consumers said they think Chinese products offer the highest quality, and 18 percent of those surveyed put Chinese products to be the most creative, said the survey.

Chinese products ranked behind US and Japanese goods on the perceptions of creativity, but they outranked Canadian, French and Scandinavian products on the question of quality, according to the survey.

In terms of the prestige, US consumers have a much higher opinion of Chinese products than they do to the products from Canada, South Korea and all other developing countries.

The survey of 2,000 American consumers was conducted in the autumn of 2007 when a series of Chinese products were recalled, said Kathy Sheehan, senior vice president of GFK Roper, noting US consumers might speak much highly of Chinese products without the recalls.

"If the current trend continues, I believe that Chinese products will enjoy higher prestige," said Sheehan.

(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2008)