Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan has called on the country's textile sector to sharpen its competitive edge.

He urged the textile sector to speed up industrial upgrading and restructuring through scientific and technological progresses in a congratulatory message to a conference held here Wednesday to honour model textile workers and manufacturers.

Redoubled efforts should be made to build homegrown textile brands,save energy and protect the environment in production, said Zeng.

China's textile industry has played a significant role in creating jobs, expanding exports and improving people's living standard, he said.

Last year, China's textile exports reached US$117.5 billion, accounting for 24 percent of the world's total textile exports.

The industry also face many challenges. Statistics show only 0.16 to 0.3 percent of the investment of textile and apparel enterprises were spent on research and development, compared with 5 percent on average in developed countries.

China processed a third of the world's fibre products last year, with Chinese brands accounting for less than 10 percent of them.

Over the next five years, the industry must change its growth mode from pursuit of scale and production capacity to improvement of efficiency, said Zeng.

(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2006)