President Hu Jintao said on Tuesday "Special focus should be put on optimizing China's foreign trade structure, having more high-quality, hi-tech and high value-added products, and manufacturing and exporting more home-grown products."

Hu was addressing a workshop in Beijing attended by China's top-ranking officials.

Hu said that since China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the country's domestic and international markets have become more closely linked, and the interaction between the domestic and global economies has also intensified.

"This has not only brought about rare opportunities for China, but has also presented severe challenges to our country's reform and development," he said.

"We must adapt ourselves to the new development trends of economic globalization, endorse a global development strategy and take an active part in international economic and technological cooperation and competition," he said.

It is the requirement of a "scientific view of development" that China adopt a new export strategy of "winning by quality" by raising the export competitiveness of its products and improving the quality and efficiency of its foreign trade, Hu added.

He also stressed that China should open its doors still wider to the outside world by both attracting more foreign investment into the country, and encouraging more domestic businesses to invest and operate overseas.

The Tuesday workshop, attended by members of the elite Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), was designed to help top Chinese leaders learn about the new features of economic globalization and international trade.

(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2005)