People's Daily has reported on the sixth China International Import Expo (CIIE) and Professor Yu Miaojie, a deputy to the National People's Congress, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Committee and President of Liaoning University, was interviewed. The original text and link are reproduced here.
The Opening of the Sixth CIIE: a ‘Four-leaf Clover’, an Exposition Benefiting the Whole World
November 14 from People's Daily (Li Tong, Jiao Lei and Ouyang Yijia).
Surrounded by beautiful four leaf clovers alongside the Huangpu River, the sixth China International Import Expo (CIIE) was a chance for old friends to meet and new friendships to be made. .
The sixth CIIE was themed ‘New Era, Shared Future’, , and consisted of a National Comprehensive Exhibition, Enterprise Business Exhibition, Hongqiao International Economic Forum, specialized supporting activities and people-to-people exchange activities. It was held from November 5 to 10 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai.
As the first global exposition devoted to exports, CIIE is a true platform promoting business activities to a global extent. Participating countries and enterprises alongside domestic buyers and consumers are there to reach deals so that both ‘Made in China’ and ‘Made for China’ enjoy equal importance.
Behind the dazzling array of exhibits lie competitions in industrial chains, invisibility in services and general rules of international trade. In the process, China is now transforming itself from a ‘World Factory’ into a ‘World Market’.
From ‘exhibitor’ into ‘investor’: forging a ‘window’ of new development
Living in China involves purchasing global products. For example, at the time of the Expo there was a sales increase of 2.8% of king crabs imported from Russia with the price decreasing from over one thousand to around 699 RMB. They were a rarity at the time of the first CIIE, but now king crabs imported from Russia are served on the dining tables of ordinary people. Benefitting from the CIIE, online celebrity exhibits from foreign countries are becoming popular products admired by Chinese people for a long time.
Relatedly, it is notable that the Norwegian Seafood Council launched a ’2025 Plan’ to further expand its sales in the Chinese market and that Argentina also targeted China as a new, growing export market for its beef products. Apples imported from New Zealand have been given an alluring name, ‘Adorable Concubine’, while the Chinese Spring Festival turned Maine’s slack season for the lobster industry into its busiest time of the year.
The exhibition attracts visitors for different reasons. This year, a record 289 enterprises from the Fortune 500 and leading enterprises in various industries participated. It is expected that guests from 154 countries, regions and international organization will also join.
The exposition displays the variety and charm of the Chinese market. For example, Luo Fude, Chairman of the board and CEO of Abbott said that “Being an important exposition of opening to the outside world, we are delighted to participate and showcase our cutting-edge life technologies and solutions in a comprehensive manner and share our vision of a healthy and bright future for medical care”.
From first-time exhibitors to regular participators, from ‘exhibitor’ to ’investor’, the ‘window effect’ of the CIIE is becoming evident.
In 2023, Bayer Pharmaceuticals unveiled its first innovation center in China. Zhang Lei, Vice President of China Publicity of Bayer noted that “China being Bayer’s second largest market in the whole world, we have been investing in China. Currently we have set up two ‘Global R&D Centers’ and four ‘World Manufacturing Plants’ in China, hoping to refine our products by enhancing local R&D capabilities so as to make our products more tailored to Chinese consumers”.
Wang Yuekui, President of BHP Billiton Ltd. China said that “Stimulated by the ‘CIIE effect’，we have been cooperating with China Baowu Steel Group Corporation, HBIS, China Copper Group Holding Co Ltd, Daye Nonferrous Metals Group Holdings Co Ltd, Zenith Steel Group Company Limited and other partners in industrial chains to sign an array of agreements to jointly promote the process of steel production and copper smelting to a low-carbon fashion”.
“We are confident about the middle and long-term development of China’s economy”, said Wei Haosi, President of Standard Chartered Group. He continued, “This is the sixth consecutive year that we have participated in CIIE. We see this platform playing an increasingly important role and China’s financial industry is making steady progress in terms of its institutional opening-up, which provides us with broader space to seize the opportunity of the Chinese market and leverage the role of financial connectors”.
The positive attitude of participants derives from the efficacy of previous expositions. A few days ago, Sheng Qiuping, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Commerce, at a press conference hosted by the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, noted that the previous five CIIEs have successfully displayed over 2000 representative products, technologies and services making their debut, reaching a total turnover of nearly 350 billion USD.
Participants’ confidence to China’s development can be fully seen through their concrete actions. A spokesperson from Panasonic stated that “Nan Jianxiong, CEO of Panasonic would attend this year’s exposition and deliver a speech in public to introduce the group’s development strategies in China, which aims to show the confidence in China’s economic development and the determination to invest here”.
Yu Miaojie, President of Liaoning University, said to reporters of People's Daily that CIIE works like a window showing China’s determination to open up at a high level, its confidence to promote high quality economic development and the resolve to forge a new development pattern where the domestic macro-cycle plays a leading role while domestic and international cycles promote each other. He added that “By building a unified national market, we can accelerate our efforts to build a domestic cycle where supply and demand will promote each other, and production and sales will enjoy equal progress. With these efforts, China’s market will become a stronger one able to maintain and reinforce its attractiveness to international enterprises and resources”.
Announcing important measures and building and promoting a high level platform for opening up
The global economy prospers because of openness and declines when it is closed. The Catalogue of Industries to Encourage Foreign Investment is now in place with an increase of 239 articles; pilot practices in some free trade zones and Hainan Free Trade Port have been conducted to work in line with relevant internationally high-level rules on economy and trade; eight actions to promote high quality co-construction of the Belt and Road Initiative have also been announced. China has been working hard to promote institutional opening up in terms of its rules, regulations, management and standards to form a broader and deeper opening-up pattern.
Chen Kai, member of Global Management Committee from Ernst & Young, said that “Many major policies on openness at the opening ceremonies of previous CIIEs have been in place, attracting great attention on China’s progress to promote high level opening up and displaying China’s confidence to build a world economy featuring openness”. He noted too that 2023 is the tenth anniversary of the founding of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and that because of CIIE and SFTZ enterprises are able to roll out new products in fields such as intelligent manufacturing and biomedicine while constantly innovating, with expos playing a positive role in optimizing the foreign business environment.
“China is making steady progress in implementing its strategies of invigorating China through workforce development and innovation-driven development, which offers exciting opportunities for trans-national companies to operate in China. This is reflected by the fact that the Global R&D Center of OTIS is constantly investing in R&D and cultivating talents in Chinese market”. Luo Xiaoli, President of OTIS China also added that OTIS will continue to play a role in China’s high-end manufacturing and localized innovation to assist China to be a new land of global innovation.
“CIIE exhibits Chinese government’s strong support on trade liberalization and economic globalization, which renders an excellent platform for enterprises to display their innovative achievements and strengthen cooperative exchanges”, said Zhao Yongzhan, President of ABB China. Over the past five years, ABB has accumulatively showcased over 200 innovative products and cutting-edge technologies and released a variety of new products and digital solutions. Many new products and technologies have reached the whole country and beyond, using CIIE as an opportunity to market them.
At this CIIE, many new small and medium-sized enterprises debuted; for example, an African agricultural products zone was established for the first time. Participating countries in this exposition cover five continents, including 11 countries attending the exposition for the first time and 34 countries attending the exposition for the first time on site.
Zhu Keli, Managing Director of China Information Industry Association and Founding President of China Institute of New Economy said to reporters of People's Daily that “CIIE serves as a crucial platform for China and is conductive to promoting liberalization and facilitating international trade and investment”.
CIIE also brings opportunities for local development. “Shanghai needs to give full play to the spillover effect of CIIE to promote Shanghai to a new level in terms of its opening up and consumer market so as to build itself into an international consumer city with global influence”, said He Jianhua, former Deputy Dean and researcher of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
Welcome friends from five continents and make profits for the whole world: build public goods that are shared by global citizens
The achievements of opening up can be measured through data. According to Chinese customs, in 2022, China’s import and export of goods totaled 42.07 trillion RMB, up 7.7% on the previous year. Import trade reached 18.1 trillion RMB, an increase of 4.3%. Total import trade including crude oil, natural gas, coal and other energy products was 3.19 trillion RMB with an increase of 40.9%, accounting for 17.6% of the total import value. Imports of agricultural products was 1.57 trillion RMB with an increase of 10.8%, accounting for 8.7% of the total import value. In addition, China's imports of intermediate products increased by 7.5%, driving the overall import growth by 5.9%.
Being both a ‘World Factory’ and a ‘World Market’, China is providing huge, stable and sustainable import demand for all parties. For most import partners, this will not only create considerable trade income and drive the development of related industries, but also create more employment opportunities and engage them in the process of economic globalization.
“CIIE as a public product shared by the whole world, highlighting China’s philosophy in upholding multilateralism and working to build a community of shared future” is how Sheng Qiuping summed up the expo. He added that by offering free stands, CIIE welcomes enterprises from the least developed countries to participate.
By referring to the agendas of previous CIIEs, it is easy to understand that CIIE has maintained cooperative mechanisms with many multilateral international organizations such as WTO, G20, APEC, and SCO. On top of that, CIIE works to help developing countries, particularly the least developed countries, to integrate into the multilateral trade system and participate in international economic and trade activities.
Exhibitions and conferences have equal importance for CIIE. The Hongqiao International Economic Forum themed around ‘Global Openness’ and ‘International Public Products’, will build a high-end dialogue platform for Chinese and international guests in the political, business, and academic community to contribute to the ‘Hongqiao Wisdom’ of world openness and development.
Link to original text:
http://finance.people.com.cn/BIG5/n1/2023/1104/c1004-40110279.html