Canton Fair made achievements in stabilizing the size, improving the quality and shifting growth impetus of foreign trade

At the concluding press conference of the 125th session of the Canton Fair, Xu Bing, Deputy Secretary General and Spokesperson of the Canton Fair and Deputy Director General of China Foreign Trade Centre, introduced the achievements made in stabilizing the size, improving the quality and shifting growth impetus of foreign trade.

Xu introduced that in this session we’ve focused on the task of stable and quality growth of foreign trade and taken pragmatic measures to support exhibitors to make more transactions faster and earlier and diversify international markets. We’ve achieved positive results in stabilizing the size, improving the quality and shifting growth impetus of foreign trade. Many exhibitors have strengthened confidence and started planning ahead; they’ve kept on innovation development, accelerated upgrading, developed new growth source and made solid steps to achieve high quality development.

Export transaction maintained a stable level. The accumulated export transaction of this session totaled 29.73 billion US dollars. The structure of transaction has been further optimized, with machinery and electrical products contributed to the highest transaction, accounting for 53.9%. Brand zone takes up 20% of total booths but contributes 28.8% of the total transaction. The transaction with “Belt and Road” countries increases by 9.9%, accounting for 35.8% of the total. Exhibitors maintain and build relations with old and new customers, which will lead to vast amount of transaction after the show.

Exhibitors accelerate their steps in expanding global market. In this session, buyers come from 213 countries and regions, with 82375 new buyers, accounting for 42.15% of the total; and buyer quality has also improved. The diversified and global buyer origin and high quality of buyers has helped exhibitors maintain their traditional markets and develop emerging markets, optimize their global presence and diversify markets in a high quality manner.

Exhibitors fully tap the potential of “Belt & Road” cooperation. As the main party of “B&R” trade cooperation, exhibitors make use of their own advantage and seize the opportunity along the route; according to the characteristics of markets and consumer demand and preference, they’ve developed products that meet the market demand, and thus create new opportunities for cooperation and expand cooperation space. The export to countries along the route has kept an increasing momentum.

Exhibitors make active efforts to promote self-owned brands. “Self-owned brands” has become a hot topic. Trading delegations promote local export brands and leading companies in export via Canton Fair, while brand companies step up their branding and strengthen their business via Canton Fair. A huge number of exhibitors have maintained their investment in technology R&D, product innovation and branding, and witnessed products of self owned IPR and brands achieving better transaction than average.

Exhibitors speed up shifting growth source. Innovation is the primary driving force of development. Exhibitors make active attempts in spurring innovation of design, technology, product, model and service and strengthen their growth source. New technology boosts quality improvement. Transaction volume of machinery and electrical products amounts to 16 billion USD, an increase of 0.9%. Many machinery and electrical exhibitors increase their R&D investment and work with universities and other research facilities to make breakthrough. Integrating cloud computing, big data, IOT into their product design and production, “overtake” others in intelligent manufacturing and secure a strategic high of development. They’ve also gained a lot of fans for themselves at this Canton Fair. New product wins the market. Many exhibitors have brought “world’s first” or “first released” products here at this Canton Fair; these products at the market frontier have become fist products for exhibitors to handle external challenges. One ceramic company launches 50 new products annually and its export orders keep constantly increasing. One company has 90% new products out of its nearly 10000 exhibits, and signed big order with a French buyer. Selling product to selling service. Many exhibitors have established smart and efficient service system and driven a complete upgrading of after sales service. One company has changed the way of their participation of the fair from providing simple Made in China products to providing one-stop Service of China to its overseas customers, and gained quick access to the vast global market.

Xu said that Canton Fair is the barometer and wind vane of China’s foreign trade. Overseas buyer attendance and export volume this session indicate that the domestic and international situation facing foreign trade development has become more complex and severe. Export faces relatively big downward pressure due to increasing factors of instabilities and uncertainties. However at this Canton Fair, exhibitors have made progress in high quality development and sped up developing new competitive edge. At present, the fundamentals of China’s foreign trade policy environment remain sound and the momentum of optimizing foreign trade structure and accelerating shifting growth source maintain. As policies of cutting tax and administrative fee, supporting SME development and improving business environment start to show effect, we will achieve the yearly goal of stable and quality development of foreign trade.

 (Canton Fair Press Centre)