China will further promote the "going global" strategy and nurture more transnational companies, senior officials said Tuesday in Beijing.

Vice Premier Wu Yi, in a written message to the on-going international forum on "going global" of Chinese enterprises, said this strategy will benefit not only China's development but also the prosperity of the whole world.

China will adhere to the policy of opening-up and combine "introducing-in" with "going-global" for further development, Wu told the two-day forum, which is sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce.

The strategy of "going global" was put forward in 2000, signifying the focus of China's foreign economic exchanges was shifted from introducing foreign investment, technology and expertise to the combination of the introduction with encouraging Chinese companies to go for business operations overseas.

Shao Ning, vice chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, said in a big economy with a broad domestic market, large enterprises are bound to be the pioneers to go to the international market.

But the large enterprises, mainly state-owned enterprises, still lag far behind transnationals in terms of management, marketing, technological development and product innovation, and there is a huge gap in competitiveness, he said.

Wang Jun, assistant minister of finance, said the ministry will study and construct policy framework to render financial and taxation support to Chinese enterprises operating overseas.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, the Chinese government last year approved 510 domestic enterprises to go abroad for business operations, involving a total investment of 2.09 billion US dollars, compared with 350 and 983 million US dollars in 2002.