China's imports and exports volume is expected to hit 1.7 trillion US dollars this year, up more than 20 percent over last year, said Fu Ziying, assistant minister of commerce, on Sunday.

Fu told the China Industrial Development Forum in Beijing that China's foreign trade maintained rapid growth in the first nine months, with the imports and exports volume reaching 1.27 trillion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 24.3 percent.

Meanwhile, exports totaled 691.2 billion US dollars, up 26.5 percent from the same period last year, and imports reached 581.4 billion US dollars, up 21.7 percent.

Fu said the country's foreign trade has risen from the sixth to the third in world rankings in the past five years, with imports and exports volume growing at an average annual rate of 24.6 percent.

China has set the goal to keep foreign trade volume at 2.3 trillion US dollars in 2010, with a balance between imports and exports. The growth rate will be maintained at 10 percent annually, according to the 11th Five-Year Program of the Ministry of Commerce.

"China reported a robust growth in foreign trade in recent years, but only achieved meager profits due to low value added in export products", said Fu, adding that it is time to shift the growth mode from quantity-oriented to quality-oriented.

Fu encouraged Chinese enterprises to spend more on technological innovation and foster a number of internationally recognized brands, in order to increase the value added in export products.

China should also "moderately increase its imports", said Fu.

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