by Xinhua Writers Liu Hong, Ren Haijun

    LAS VEGAS, the United States, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- It is a desire for many Chinese entrepreneurs to see more products labeled "Designed in China" rather than "Made in China."

    Yang Yuanqing, CEO of Chinese technology giant Lenovo, is one of them. Yang calls innovation "the soul of an enterprise."

    The 46-year-old Yang made the remark during an interview with Xinhua on Wednesday, one day before the annual International Consumer Electronics Show.

    Yang also held a news conference to announce the company's mobile Internet strategy and revealed the first generation of mobile internet terminals, including the smartbook Skylight, smartphone LePhone, and the industry's first hybrid notebook IdeaPad U1.

    Those products all are the tangible results of what Yang called "innovation."

    It was innovation, Yang said, that helped Lenovo grow from a kid on the block in Zhongguancun, a technology hub in Beijing known as "China's Silicon Valley," into a world famous PC brand.

    "We should cultivate the innovation gene, rather than imitation," Yang told Xinhua.

    Lenovo, the world's fourth largest PC supplier, is moving toward becoming a full-fledged giant in the international consumer electronics market, and innovation, Yang said, is still the company's strategy.

    The cost advantage of Chinese businesses, Yang said, not only lies in manufacturing, but also in designing.

    "Chinese engineers are as creative as their American counterparts, but much less paid," he said. "That's how innovation creates competitiveness in China."

    Yang's confidence didn't come out of nowhere. The IdeaPad U1 garnered extensive attention in a media preview ahead of the news conference.

    Major U.S. media, including the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, gave the computer particular attention.

    PC World, a popular trade magazine dedicated to computer related issues, said "Lenovo is showing off some of the most innovative PC hardware at this year's show."

    Yang acknowledged that Chinese companies still have limited brand recognition in the world compared to other electronic giants in the U.S., Europe, Japan and South Korea, but said "it takes time to fix the problem."

    "Our strategy is innovation, through which we hope to penetrate the global market and gain more customers," he said.