China has to increase the proportion of high-tech products in its total exports of machinery and electronic products in a bid to boost the country's competitiveness and snare a larger international market share, an official for the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Friday.

China's exports of machinery and electronic products rebounded during the first half of 2010, and the entire year's exports of such products may hit or even exceed the 2008 levels seen before the financial crisis, said Zhang Ji, chief director of the Department of Mechanical, Electronic and Hi-Tech Industry of the MOC.

But Zhang said the proportion of high-tech products in the country's exports of machinery and electronic products remains small. In fact, the country still relies on imports of much high-end equipment.

China exported machinery and electronic products worth 416.97 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of the year, up 35.9 percent year on year.

At the same time, the country's imports of such products rose 45.5 percent to 302.64 billion U.S. dollars during this same period.