Shi was speaking on the first day of a national working conference on foreign trade and economic co-operation, which will end tomorrow.

He called for trade officials to help increase China's machinery and electronics exports to US$160 billion and high-tech products to US$60 billion by 2005, accounting for 50 percent and 20 percent of the country's total exports respectively.

In the first 11 months of this year, China made US$430.92 billion in foreign trade meaning it has already achieved its Ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000) foreign trade goal of US$400 billion for this year.

Shi estimated China's foreign trade volume will reach US$470 billion for the whole year and said the amount of actually used direct foreign investment is expected to stop declining.

China's actually used direct foreign investment dropped 2.3 percent from last year in the January-November period but contracted direct foreign investment has come out of the shadow of the 1997 Southeast Asian financial turmoil, increasing 36.3 percent year-on-year in the same period.

For 2001, Shi said officials must work hard to ensure that foreign trade will increase 8 percent year-on-year.

He said officials must stick to the export-promoting policies that the government has begun to take in the last two years.

They must help Chinese exporters to diversify their overseas markets, continue to encourage general trade and improve the quality of products, said Shi.

The exporting of machinery and electronic products is expected to increase by 15 per cent to US$120 billion and that of high-tech products, to US$41.5 billion next year, he said.

He suggested some national high-tech development zones in Shanghai and Beijing be chosen as experimental spots to promote high-tech exports. And the government will continue to support the exporting of name-brand machinery and electronic products.

He also expects China's actually used amount of direct foreign investment to maintain this year's level next year.

While continuing to encourage foreign companies to invest in high-tech industry, China's central and western areas and small and medium-sized enterprises, and help reform State-owned companies, the central government is also exploring new ways of using foreign investment.

This includes venture capital and Sino-foreign joint venture investment funds, said Shi.

Shi said next year trade officials must pay more attention to the problems of export tax rebate cheats and smuggling. He added it is important to encourage Chinese companies to invest overseas.

The electronics business is also an important means of expanding trade and officials must make full use of the Internet when managing China's foreign trade and economic cooperation, said Shi.

(China Daily 12/27/2000)