Trade with India rose by as much as 34 percent year-on-year in 2008, the fastest increase among China's top 10 trading partners. Trade with Brazil soared by 63.2 percent year-on-year to over $48 billion in 2008, the fastest increase among all of China's trading partners.

Chinese companies also see their investments in emerging markets developing more rapidly than elsewhere. Xu Zhihua, CEO of Peak Group, a sportswear company, said sales of his company's products in the Middle East and Eastern Europe rose 60 percent in 2008.

In contrast, trade with the US, China's second largest trading partner, only went up by 10.5 percent over 2007. Trade with Japan, another major export market, rose by 13 percent.

In a national commerce work conference held recently in Beijing, Chen Deming, the commerce minister, urged Chinese enterprises to "fully recognize the importance of emerging markets" in Asia, the Middle East and South America.

More than 60 percent of the country's exports are destined to the United States, the European Union and Japan, the three major economies worst hit by the economic crisis.

Chen said the trade outlook with these markets is grim as they head into further recession in 2009. "We need to work very hard in other markets to make up for the drop in exports to the three major economies, but exports to emerging markets are getting more difficult," he said.

Chen said the government would organize more domestic enterprises to attend expositions held in the emerging countries to explore markets there. It will encourage and support Chinese enterprises to register their trademarks in developing countries. The Chinese government will also invite more enterprises from emerging countries to attend the trading expos held in China.

The government will also try to stabilize exports by revising tax policies and providing more financial support to domestic firms, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises. It has increased export tax rebates for the industries most severely hit three separate times, including textiles, garments and toys, since the second half of 2008.

China's total foreign trade in 2008 increased by 17.8 percent over the previous year, to $2.56 trillion.