China plans to reduce its bulky trade surplus to zero by the end of the decade, via a drastic decline in the growth of its exports to the outside world, the government has said.

Chinese visitors check out the shoes on display at a shoe exhibition in Beijing. China plans to reduce its bulky trade surplus to zero by the end of the decade, via a drastic decline in the growth of its exports to the outside world, the government has said. [AFP]

Until 2010, the world's fourth-largest economy will target 10 percent annual growth in foreign trade, down from 24 percent growth in the first half of the decade, the commerce ministry said in a statement on its website Wednesday.

In the next four years, China will target a new foreign trade strategy where exporters abandon the blind pursuit of growth for growth's own sake in favor of "quality growth," the ministry said.

Export-oriented companies, especially private enterprises engaged in labor-intensive manufacturing, must move away from low-price competition and try to gain a competitive advantage through technical innovation, it said.

China's trade surplus in the first eight months of 2006 hit 95.7 billion dollars, well on track to bust last year's record of 101.9 billion dollars.

State-run Xinhua news agency also cited unnamed commerce ministry sources as saying the need to curb continued growth in the nation's ballooning forex reserves.

The country's forex reserves, the largest in the world, hit 954.5 billion dollars at the end of July, according to the latest available data.

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