China's foreign sales of machinery will likely grow at a rate of 20 percent or so this year, with high-value-added products expected to claim a bigger share, industry observers said on Friday.

A slowdown in demand growth at home would help stimulate export, the observers believed.

According to customs sources, China's foreign trade in machinery amounted to 283.97 billion U.S. dollars last year, representing a year-on-year growth of 27.42 percent over the previous year and leaving a trade surplus of 747 million U.S. dollars.

Shi Haixian, a researcher with Tianxiang Investment, said, "China's export of engineering machinery will grow at a rate much higher than 20 percent."

She said since 2004, engineering machinery export kept increasing by more than 50 percent annually. In the first 11 months of 2006, the growth rate was as high as more than 70 percent, she added.

According to Zhang Zhongjie, a researcher with Zhongyuan Securities, the proportion of high-value-added products in China's total exports of machinery tended to continue rising, including engineering machinery, port machinery, numerical control machine tools and large digging machines.

Source: Xinhua