The Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday held a seminar on high-tech home brands in port city Dalian, urging domestic enterprises to export more goods with their own brands, the Economic Reference newspaper reported.
  
Although China has become the world's third largest trade country, with its trade volume jumping to US$593.4 billion last year, 61 times than that of 1978 when China started reform and opening-up, most of its exports are still labeled with overseas brands.
  
Less than 10 percent of China's export goods are home-branded, according to the Economic Reference.
  
Twenty-five domestic enterprises from the information, software, pharmaceutics, aviation and space technology industries sent representatives to the seminar, which was attended by over 20 senior officials from the Ministry of Commerce, including Minister Bo Xilai.
  
This is the first time for the Ministry to host such seminar on high-tech home brands, said Vice Minister Wei Jianguo of Commerce at the meeting.
  
According to a report released by the Ministry of Commerce, less than 3 percent of brands in the international market are name brands, with sales accounting for over 50 percent of the total global sales volume.
  
Less than 20 percent of Chinese export enterprises, however, possess their own brands, a tiny portion of which can be called world-famous brands, the report said.
  
Some Chinese enterprises have now turned their eyes toward the global market to gain overseas recognition of their brands.     
  
Haier, a booming household appliance manufacturer based in Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province, has set up its first advertising bulletin board, also the first one ever for Chinese enterprises, on Ginza Avenue in Tokyo, the most prosperous business zone in the Japanese capital.
  
Lenovo Group Limited, China's No. 1 computer manufacturer, has invested tremendously in switching its two-decade-old English brand name "Legend" into the current "Lenovo" in order to attain wider international recognition. Its previous English brand name "Legend" had already been registered in various sectors in many countries, which made it very difficult to promote the brand overseas.
  
Although some Chinese enterprises began to export goods with their own brands, added values of these brands are still quite low due to lack of unique intellectual property rights and core technology, the report from the Ministry of Commerce said.
  
Most Chinese enterprises label their brands just to indicate that their products are processed in China, so brands names on Chinese export commodities do not necessarily mean advanced technology, high rates of profit and promotion of international competitiveness, the report said.
  
Increasing Chinese exports with home brands is important for the transition of trade growth, said Bo Xilai at the seminar, putting emphasis on brand promotion in the high-tech industry.
  
The Ministry of Commerce will attempt to boost trade in high-tech products and increase efforts to help enterprises forge world name brands, Bo said.
  
The Ministry will offer services and "realistic support" to domestic enterprises in this regard, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2005)