China needs to raise the proportion of Chinese brands in its exports, to improve the nation’s trade quality and efficiency, a senior official said here Wednesday.

Chinese brands make up less than 10 percent of China’s exports, said Fu Shuangjian, deputy director at the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), at the 2010 China Trademark Annual Meeting, which kicked off Wednesday in Xining, capital city of west China’s Qinghai Province.

Excluding overseas invested companies, less than 20 percent of Chinese exporters have registered trademarks in China, while less than 5 percent have registered trademarks abroad, said Fu.

China exports products across the world, but they are often low value-added products, added Fu.

Chinese exporters are weak at product development and marketing, said Li Shunde, a law scholar who heads the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Intellectual Property Research Center.

China is encouraging domestic companies to file more international trademark applications, to compete in the global market and better protect its trademark rights.

The SAIC will boost efforts to protect trademarks at home, and it will also encourage domestic companies to buy foreign trademarks and have their own brands registered overseas, Fu added.

China’s exports grew 38.1 percent in July to 145.5 billion U.S. dollars, according to the General Administration of Customs. The growth rate was above the 35.2-percent growth rate of June.

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