Exporters target global events for edge, growth

Participation in trade shows seen expanding business in emerging fields

China’s facilitation of its companies’ participation in overseas exhibitions will quicken, encouraging them to enlarge their presence in developing and emerging markets, the country’s top foreign trade and investment promotion agency said on Tuesday.

For Chinese companies, participation in business events in emerging markets is as vital as taking part in well-known industrial exhibitions in developed economies, in order to further diversify their sales channels, Yang Fan, the spokeswoman for the Beijing-based China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said at a monthly news conference.

The council will be prompt in giving approvals for follow-up overseas economic and trade exhibition projects, so as to assist China’s export-oriented companies to stay competitive in global markets, said Yang.

The council, she said, has approved participating in 15 overseas economic and trade exhibition projects since November to boost exports.

Held in countries like Germany and the United States, the projects focused on themes like textiles, auto parts and consumer goods. Judging from the six trade shows that have been organized so far, participating companies have gained handsomely in terms of both intended transaction volume and new customers.

For instance, 58 Chinese companies, led by Beijing-based China International Exhibition Center Group Corp, participated in ISPO Munich 2022, one of the world’s largest multi-segment trade fairs of the sports business, in Germany in late November. In addition to setting up 120 booths during the event, they sealed 18 million euros ($19.19 million) worth of deals during the trade show and reached 35 million euros worth of intended transaction volume.

With China further optimizing COVID-19 control measures and underlining an overall improvement in economic operations, domestic companies from provinces like Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Fujian and Sichuan have all been rushing to charter planes to make their presence felt in business events such as the Food Ingredients Europe 2022 in Paris and the Asia Fashion Fair 2022 Tokyo. Their main goals were retention of existing clients and securing more orders.

The city government of Jiaxing in Zhejiang province confirmed that more than 80 groups of exhibitors will participate in various overseas trade exhibitions by the end of 2023, and there will be five groups going abroad this month.

As many Chinese exporters have slowed their search for new clients since last year, there has been a decline in their overall export performance. Hence, overseas trips are organized as a practical way to help exporters meet more clients across the world and boost their expectations, said Lyu Miao, a researcher at the Jiaxing-based Yangtze Delta Region Institute of Tsinghua University, Zhejiang.

Similar views were expressed by Zuo Lisi, director of the foreign trade unit at Dongguan Youngsun Paper Co Ltd in Guangdong province. “Chartered flight enabled us to have face-to-face business meetings with buyers at the China Homelife Dubai 2022 in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month. We signed contracts for orders worth $200,000.”

Apart from signing a number of contracts for knitted products during his trips to Los Angeles and Orlando in late November, Wang Haizhou, president of Ningbo Hi-Tech Handsome Knitting Co Ltd, is considering whether or not to establish a branch and develop an overseas warehouse to support the company’s business growth in the United States.

“This can be a flexible way for my staff members to contact local clients directly and keep our US customer base stable,” he said.

Given the resilience of China’s supply chains, continuing technological upgrade, optimization of the industrial structure and strong competitiveness of the auto industry, China’s foreign trade value rose 8.6 percent year-on-year to 38.34 trillion yuan ($5.51 trillion) during the January-November period this year, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

The Ministry of Commerce announced on Monday that apart from spurring goods trade, it released the outstanding practice cases of China’s comprehensive pilot programs for opening up the services sector.

The move aims to promote eight comprehensive cases from areas like intellectual property services and digitalization of public services across the whole country, providing reference for local governments to advance the opening-up and innovation of the services sector, the ministry said in a statement.