China gears up brand promotion

By Shan Juan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-07-10 16:38

A top trade official said building homegrown brand names is crucial if China wants to beef up exports and take a bigger share in the international trade.

Jiang Zengwei, vice minister of commerce, made this call during the Fuzhou stop of a campaign to promote Chinese brands over the weekend.

To this end, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) launched, in June, a four-month-long activity to give more publicity to Chinese brands and to make these homegrown brands internationally known.

The brand-promotion campaign is scheduled to tour 51 cities of the country, which is expected to give a boost to China's homegrown brands.

China is now already a big trader in the world, although the country does not have many internationally known brands. Jiang said China's trade volume will be further boosted if the country could cultivate more brands that are internationally known and popular.

China is one of top trade countries in the world and has the world's largest foreign exchange reserve at US$925 billion, which will probably amount to US$1,000 billion by the end of 2006, Jiang said.

And in three years time, the country might become the world's largest trade country, he said.

Presently, the exports of top brands account for less than 10 per cent of China's total exports, and the promotion tour is expected to help bolster the exports of Chinese brand-name products.