Chinese State Councilor Wu Yi urged a relatively rapid increase of exports next year and greater overseas investment to contribute to national economic growth.

Speaking at a national conference on foreign trade, Wu asked for improved competitiveness of export commodities in terms of scientific and technological advancement, saying that it is now imperative to expand exports of high-tech and high value-added mechanical and electronic products.

She said that it is also essential that the foreign trade sector serve the national economy, underlining such main tasks as accelerating the pace of integrating economic and trade policies with the overall industrial policies, providing enterprises with timely international market information, and improving the import product mix and the industrial structure of overseas-funded projects.

The major tasks also include helping state-owned industrial enterprises expand their share of the international market, introducing more Chinese enterprises and products overseas through multilateral and bilateral economic and trade exchanges, and further reforming the state-owned foreign trade sector.

Wu said it is also imperative to step up efforts to open the interior regions in central and western China to the rest of the world, and to further develop economic and trade exchanges overseas, adding that accelerating the opening-up drive will be an important for the development of these regions.

In this regard, the state councilor said, it is essential to implement all policies already mapped out, and more preferential policies must be offered to open the regions in order to absorb more overseas investment.

She also said that foreign trade this year was better than expected as exports began to increase again by a relatively wide margin in recent months.

This year's task for using overseas investment has been accomplished while overseas contracted projects and labor cooperation have made progress.

She also reminded everyone that China and the United States reached a bilateral agreement on China's entry into the World Trade Organization this year.

Economic work this year was undertaken under relatively intricate international and domestic circumstances, Wu added.