The sense of the urgent need for changes is prevalent among China's exporters, especially in such traditional sectors as textile. Yu Yimin, general manager of the Soho International Group, which deals in natural silk fabrics, says his company has developed an obsession with innovation, which it considers the only way to survive.
"Importers would just say 'No way' and walk out on us if we hinted at a price hike as competition is fierce in China, but if we have something unique, then it strengthens our hand," Yu says.
Based in east China's Jiangsu Province, the company has established its name for manufacturing rare male raw silk and is developing artificial skin from silk protein. Yu is confident that his company will be more competitive as the artificial skin --already in clinical use -- will cost just one-tenth of similar products abroad.
As the world's third biggest trade power expands rapidly after the United States and Germany, China hopes to polish the reputation of "Made in China", making it a mark of quality rather than cheapness. Processing trade requiring only simple assembly of imported raw materials, which boost the country's foreign trade takeoff in the 1980s, is no longer widely encouraged.
Processing trade imports and exports totaled 440.9 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of 2007, a rise of 17.6 percent year on year. Meanwhile ordinary trade jumped 28.7 percent to 440.8 billion U.S. dollars, the first time it had equal shares with processing trade.
Zhao Yumin, a research fellow with the Trade and Economic Cooperation Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, says only cost-efficient companies that constantly improve productivity have a chance of surviving fierce global competition and growing protectionism.
The exact number of Chinese exporters is unknown, but Zhao says many of them still depend on the cost advantages of labor and raw materials as they lack the financial or technological capacity for innovation.
While China-made clothes, shoes, toys, furniture and tyres flow into overseas markets, some foreigners are happy to have cheap goods, but others claim they suffer the effects of job losses. Foreign governments sometimes imposed stricter quality standards, which exporters sometimes struggled to meet, aggravating problems caused by currency appreciation.
Turkey, for instance, imposed a customs deposit of 200-300 U.S. dollars on every imported motorcycle and electric bike since last August as Turkish foreign trade authorities launched a safeguard measure to investigate the damages inflicted by foreign manufacturers on local industries. China, the world's largest motorcycle exporter, however, was the only developing country targeted by the investigation.
"Importers would just say 'No way' and walk out on us if we hinted at a price hike as competition is fierce in China, but if we have something unique, then it strengthens our hand," Yu says.
Based in east China's Jiangsu Province, the company has established its name for manufacturing rare male raw silk and is developing artificial skin from silk protein. Yu is confident that his company will be more competitive as the artificial skin --already in clinical use -- will cost just one-tenth of similar products abroad.
As the world's third biggest trade power expands rapidly after the United States and Germany, China hopes to polish the reputation of "Made in China", making it a mark of quality rather than cheapness. Processing trade requiring only simple assembly of imported raw materials, which boost the country's foreign trade takeoff in the 1980s, is no longer widely encouraged.
Processing trade imports and exports totaled 440.9 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of 2007, a rise of 17.6 percent year on year. Meanwhile ordinary trade jumped 28.7 percent to 440.8 billion U.S. dollars, the first time it had equal shares with processing trade.
Zhao Yumin, a research fellow with the Trade and Economic Cooperation Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, says only cost-efficient companies that constantly improve productivity have a chance of surviving fierce global competition and growing protectionism.
The exact number of Chinese exporters is unknown, but Zhao says many of them still depend on the cost advantages of labor and raw materials as they lack the financial or technological capacity for innovation.
While China-made clothes, shoes, toys, furniture and tyres flow into overseas markets, some foreigners are happy to have cheap goods, but others claim they suffer the effects of job losses. Foreign governments sometimes imposed stricter quality standards, which exporters sometimes struggled to meet, aggravating problems caused by currency appreciation.
Turkey, for instance, imposed a customs deposit of 200-300 U.S. dollars on every imported motorcycle and electric bike since last August as Turkish foreign trade authorities launched a safeguard measure to investigate the damages inflicted by foreign manufacturers on local industries. China, the world's largest motorcycle exporter, however, was the only developing country targeted by the investigation.
