A few minutes' walk from the main border crossing between Hong Kong and China proper, Luo Hu Commercial City is the antithesis of a shoppers' paradise.

With few exceptions, the building is made up of five stories of knock-offs, fakes, and (to many) retail rubbish. Fake DVDs, T-shirts with misspelled familiar logos, golf irons with the right brand name but a suspiciously low price tag – this is not so much Aladdin's Cave as his appendix. Actually, China has got so much more to offer nowadays than ersatz Adidas. There's no need to slavishly imitate global brands any more. "Made in China" has made the essential move from embarrassment to accolade.

There's a host of smart, new and – most importantly – unique products coming out of the People's Republic: furniture, jewellery, clothing and more. They sport new brand names, and they're making retailers and wholesalers around the world sit up and take notice.

Perhaps one of the best examples is the Sanitov, a European take on the three-wheeled bike (san lun che) that is still an integral part of the delivery system in many Chinese cities. Alexander Host, a young Danish designer, was intrigued by the trike and decided to produce a modernised version. After adding a motor, a GPS, a leather saddle, gears and tinkering with the design – while keeping its minimalist Chinese look – the Sanitov was able to carry a 150 kilo load (including the driver). It now sells for US$2,500 – and Host intends to reduce the price once the trike is produced in larger quantities.

Intriguingly, 80 percent of the world's bike parts are manufactured in China. Those at the factory that made the Sanitov prototype first scoffed, but later became fascinated by its possibilities. The combination of European design and Chinese manufacturing prowess bodes well for the future.

With transportation, Yang Bao Guang, chief designer for Suren – which makes leather products – claims he takes much of his inspiration from car designs ("I love cars"), while his wife, Mao Shu Hong, the company's general manager, buys stones that give him inspiration for textures and shapes. Many Chinese companies are family run and Suren, which is based just outside Beijing, makes high quality handbags and shoes as well as key holders and purses.

The husband-wife team sources their leather from Italy, Spain, Australia, Taiwan and Korea, and use Chinese sheepskin. Having relied on young urban professionals across the PRC as their main customer base, they are now starting to market overseas. Like companies around the world, they are plagued by piracy. Yang and Mao worked on a bag design for three months, only to see it copied and put in the window of a rival store a few days after it went on sale.

The trend toward Made in China design might be traced to Hong Kong tycoon David Tang Wing Cheung's 1994 launch of Shanghai Tang, which sold Han dynasty clothing with a very modern twist in sometimes garish colours. While the line garnered legions of fans, and was later profitably sold to Swiss luxury goods holding company Richemont, its real legacy was proving that goods designed and manufactured in China by Chinese could be as good as those from anywhere else in the world. That it took a British-educated tycoon (albeit one who was ethnically Chinese) to promote the idea in no way detracted from the central thesis.

Suren's bags and the Sanitov bike succeed for a number of reasons as do a swathe of other Chinese products. It's partly that they are well designed and well made. Less easily discernible is what might be dubbed the "China Q'ul Effect": products that were once ridiculously cheap are now pricier and no longer laughed at. Post Olympics and post Shanghai Expo, China Manufacturing Inc is taking centre stage.

The lesson for multinationals with an eye on China as well as their bottom line? Up-and-coming Chinese brands are no longer simply getting into the market on the flimsy premise that they are cheap but good enough. Cool design, top quality and – more importantly – ambition means that they are ready to take on foreign brands on an equal footing.