Canton Fair issues various measures to boost stable and quality growth of foreign trade

At the openingpress conference of the 125th Canton Fair on April 14, Xu Bing, spokesman forthe Fair and Deputy Director General of the China Foreign Trade Centre,introduced the measures taken by Canton Fair to achieve stable and higherquality growth of foreign trade.

Xu introduced that inthis session we will follow the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialismwith Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and implement new developmentconcepts. To pursue high-quality development, we will pursue stable and qualitygrowth of foreign trade, optimize exhibition structure and improve exhibitionquality, to support exhibitors’ make more transaction earlier and faster anddiversify their export markets. To that end we’ve taken the following measures:

Stabilize exhibition size. The 125th Canton Fair has a total exhibition area of1.185 million square meters and 60,651 booths. The total amount of exhibitorsreaches 25496 and that of domestic exhibitors 24846. As China’s important tradepromotion platform, Canton Fair is a crucial channel for exhibitors to meet newcustomers, achieve export transaction, show corporate image, get marketinformation and launch new products. The stable exhibition size of Canton Fairwill help exhibitors boost confidence.

Stabilize the main party, namely stabilize the participating party such asstate owned, foreign funded and private companies. To include more types offoreign trade companies as Canton Fair exhibitors will boost the confidence fordevelopment and create trade opportunities. It should be emphasized thatprivate companies have become the main force of China’s foreign trade; lastyear, private companies contributed to 48% of China’s total export andwitnessed higher trade quality. Among all Canton Fair exhibitors, state ownedcompanies amount to 1301 or 5.24% of the total, foreign funded companies 2419,or 9.74%, while private companies 21126, or 85.03%. Thus private companies havebecome the largest participating party of Canton Fair.

Stabilize the market. Market and buyer are the precondition for trade andtransaction. In this session we’ve stuck to the principle of “innovative, specialized,targeted and delicate”, focus on key sections and target markets, launch globalpromotion and buyer invitation to stabilize the number of quality of buyers.Canton Fair is a trade promotion platform with the widest buyer origin. It isforecast that buyers from 210 countries and regions will attend this session,which will help exhibitors consolidate traditional markets, develop emergingmarkets, optimize market mix and achieve high quality diversification ofmarkets.

Stabilizeimport. The Report on the Work of Government thisyear states that we need to improve import mix and expand imports. In thissession we’ve further improved the quality of International Pavilion. 650exhibiting companies from 38 countries and regions, including many leadingcompanies from the US, UK, Germany and Japan will participate. We’ve alsostepped up invitation to large supermarkets, e-commerce platforms, importsupermarkets and other specialized purchasing parties to provide a fast trackfor overseas exhibitors to open the Chinese market and satisfy the growing anddiversified market demand.

Improvequality. Currently, animportant aspect of China’s foreign trade is to encourage the export ofproducts of high tech, high quality and high added value and increase China’sstatus in the global value chain. To achieve high quality development, we’veoptimized the structure of exhibitors. The number of private companies rose by26 over the last session. We’ve improved the quality of exhibitors. Leadingcompanies of various industries make active participation with 2296 brandcompanies and over 30% new product. We’ve witnessed more exhibitors withself-owned patents, brands and marketing, as well as more products of hightechnological content, high added value and environmentally friendly products.Through Canton Fair Awards and Canton Fair design activities we’ve guidedexhibitors to strengthen design and R&D and develop new competitive edge. Wewill also organize 50 promotion and trade matchmaking events for 30 provincesand cities to promote open economic development of different regions.

 (Canton Fair Press Center)