High-tech imports and exports, strongly encouraged by the government, rose 26.8 percent on year in the first ten months this year, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) reported Monday.

China imported 157.5 billion US dollars-worth of high-tech and new products in the ten-month period, up 20.3 percent, while exports surged a year-on-year 33.5 percent to 171.3 billion dollars, the MOC said.

The growth of high-tech exports is 2.4 percentage points higher than that of China's foreign trade growth, the ministry said, adding "the driving force (of high-tech exports) is being intensified."

For a long time, the lack of their own brands and intellectual property rights has been a headache for export-oriented Chinese enterprises. As much as 85 of China's high-tech exports actually came from foreign-funded companies, a MOC official has revealed.

Major high-tech exports from China include integrated circuits, cell phones and computers.

Meanwhile, senior Chinese leaders have been urging developed countries, typically the United States, to liberalize the exports involving advanced technologies to China, saying the limits partly contributed to China's huge trade surplus with the U.S.

China posted earlier an increase of 24 percent in its aggregate foreign trade from January to October to 1.15 trillion US dollars, nearing the total for last year.

In other economic news, the MOC said Monday that materialized foreign direct investment dropped a slight 2.1 percent, but contractual investment, an indicator of future trends, jumped 22.5 percent in the first ten months.

Source: Xinhua