'Made in China' becomes less likely

BEIJING, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Chinese exports are swinging away from the vast realm of light manufacturing to industrial goods, a private research group said.

The Beijing firm Dragonomics said light manufacturing fell from 45 percent to 30 percent of the nation's exports between 2002 and 2008. Heavy industrial goods, such as chemicals and steel, grew from 29 percent of the country's exports to 40 percent in the same years, The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

"Light manufacturing is still very important, but it is a little anachronistic. It's less relevant than it was a decade ago," said Ben Simpfendorfer, chief China economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

As major economies worked their way through a prolonged recession, total exports from China for the first nine months of the year were about 20 percent lower compared to January through September of 2008, Global Trade Information Services reported.