Canton Fair Implements Belt & Road Initiative and Achieved Remarkable Progress

At the Press Conference for the opening of the 123rd session of Canton Fair held on the Apr 14th., Mr. Xu Bing, spokesperson of the Canton Fair, Deputy Director General of China Foreign Trade Centre, introduced the implementation of “Belt and Road” Initiative at the Canton Fair.

Xu Bing said that as a window for China’s opening up, the Canton Fair will make use of its unique advantage as a platform and build a bridge between China and “Belt & Road” countries, facilitating Chinese companies and products to go global and companies and products in countries along the route to enter the Chinese market, driving smooth trade and mutual beneficial development between China and Belt & Road countries. 

Xu Bing mentioned that in recent years, as the “Belt & Road” initiative was pressed ahead, buyers and exhibiting companies from these countries have become an important part of the Canton Fair. In the 122nd session, 84445 buyers from Belt & Road countries attended the fair, increased by 3.48% and accounting for 43.99% of the total; transactions made with these countries stood at 9.37 billion USD, up by 13.6%. In the 123rd session we will further carry out the initiative and tap the cooperation potential, to bring trade cooperation between China and B&R countries to another level.

Enhance cooperation with government departments and industrial and commercial organizations in B&R countries. At present, the Canton Fair has signed partnership agreement with 46 industrial and commercial organizations in 32 B&R countries, providing consulting, exhibition attendance and participation, and trade promotion services. We will consolidate our cooperation with industrial and commercial organizations in countries like India, Turkey, Egypt, Malaysia etc. and provide them with easy access to the Chinese market by organizing enterprises in these countries to attend the fair. Also we’ve built close partnership with trade organizations in many B&R countries like Nepal, Thailand, Ukraine etc., to help the local companies participate in the development of Belt and Road through the Canton Fair.

Increase invitation to B&R buyers. We’ve worked with Chinese embassies and consulates overseas, trade promotion government organs of overseas countries, industrial and commercial organizations to publish the latest situation of the fair. We’ve focused on marketing, promotion and invitation to the B&R countries. 48% of direct mails sent and more than half of the Internet Promotion Campaign are targeting Indonesia, Turkey, Poland, Uzbekistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Russia, Slovenia and other B&R countries. In the meanwhile, we’ve launched more targeted invitation to buyers of B&R countries. According to the market characteristics, we’ve made better use of social media, search engine, and overseas media to publish relevant advertisement, to raise the conversion rate of buyer attendance.

Increase invitation to exhibiting companies from countries along the route. 382 (62% of the total) exhibiting companies from 21 B&R countries with 626 (63% of the total) booths participate in the International Pavilion, covering all 6 product zones. Egypt, Turkey, India, Thailand and Nepal will organize national delegations.

Launch “B&R” thematic forums. We will hold a forum on the theme of “Market Access Standards for Products from B&R countries” to facilitate enterprises to access the market information and explore the market along the B&R countries more effectively.

（Canton Fair News Center）