国务院发文培育外贸竞争新优势

The State Council, China's cabinet, has issued a guideline detailing new goals in the development of foreign trade.

The guideline maps out the country's aim to expand trade relations with more countries and regions as well as to raise the quality and variety of its exports to enhance the country's competitiveness.

It notes that advantages in labor-intensive industries like textiles and furniture should be further consolidated.

The guideline also states that China is to export a combination of products, services, technologies and capital by 2020 instead of mainly goods.

It also highlights efforts to enlarge the imports of advanced equipment and products, which could benefit the country's industrial restructuring and upgrading.

Zhang Jianping, senior researcher with the National Development and Reform Commission, says China needs to nurture new growth points in foreign trade.

"China's foreign trade has grown at a slower pace in recent years. This is mainly due to a lack of new growth points. There is too much focus on commodity trade, not enough on service trade. There aren't enough quality exports especially domestic brand products with advanced technology and high added value. The proportion of processing trade is fairly big. And we rely too much on trade with traditional markets, mainly developed economies. We need to conduct more trade with the emerging economies."

The State Council is encouraging closer trade ties with countries and regions along the route of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative, with a focus on exports of manufacturing equipment and related services.

Official data shows total foreign trade posted a 7.3 percent decrease in the first four months of this year, falling to 7.5 trillion yuan.

Exports to emerging markets rose by 5.7 percent in the same period, contributing nearly 170 percent of export increase.