Solely foreign-funded companies together with Sino-foreign joint ventures in China contributed 83.9 percent to the country's total exports of electronic information products in the first seven months this year, latest figures have shown.

Figures from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) show solely foreign-funded firms contributed 67.4 percent with an export volume of US$158.65 billion , while the exports by Sino-foreign joint ventures totaled US$38.88 billion, or 16.5 percent of the country's total exports for the January-July period.

Domestic companies by contrast made exports totaling US$37.79 billion, or 16.1 percent of the total.

As one of the major manufacturers, China's electronic information products range from electronic components, DVDs, monitors and cellphones to laptops and telecommunications equipment, among others.

The sector registered 416.88 billion yuan (US$55 billion) in industrial output in the first half, up 17.5 percent year on year and raked in 1.92 trillion yuan in sales revenue, according to figures from the National Development and Reform Commission.

To sharpen the competitiveness of the industry, the government has designated integrated circuit, software and new type of electronic components as "the fundamental core sectors", and new-generation telecommunication and high-performance computers as the "strategic growth sectors" for the 2006-2010 period.

But there is still a long way to go for these policies to be materialized as the MII figures show nearly 85 percent of the exports, or US$199.15 billion in value, in the first seven months remained low value-added.

The country's exports of electronic information products grew 25.9 percent year-on-year to US$235.32 billion in the first seven months this year, accounting for 36 percent of China's total exports of all products.

The imports rose 19.3 percent year-on-year to US$182.09 billion, taking up 35.2 percent of the country's total imports of all products.