China Import and Export Fair taking anti-COVID precautions

Organizers of the China Import and Export Fair and Guangdong provincial departments are sparing no efforts to ensure the fair to be held this week in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, will be safe, successful and provide better services to participants and visitors.

The 130th China Import and Export Fair, commonly known as the Canton Fair, will take place online and offline in Guangzhou from Oct 15 to 19, organizers said.

More than 7,500 companies will display their latest technologies and products in a more than 400,000-square-meter exhibition area, and an additional 26,000 firms will exhibit theirs online.

To ensure a coronavirus-free event in the southern metropolis, starting Friday, all passengers arriving in Guangzhou will be quarantined for three weeks at designated venues, according to the province's anti-COVID-19 headquarters.

Previously, inbound passengers have been quarantined for two weeks.

All participants and visitors to the fair who come from or have visited a medium- or high-risk area within 14 days must show a negative COVID-19 test result obtained no more than 48 hours before entering the exhibition halls, and they must report their health condition and itinerary to local health departments, neighborhood committees and hotels within 12 hours of their arrival.

Free nucleic acid tests are available for people who have been granted certificates to enter the fair's exhibition, organizers said.

Meanwhile, public venues and main streets and roads around the exhibition halls in the city's Haizhu district will have been disinfected, redecorated and cleaned before the fair opens.

Free testing services

Zhang Qingfu, a fair participant, said the organizing committee is offering participants and visitors free nucleic acid testing services in the exhibition halls and is introducing a strict COVID-19 pandemic prevention-and-control system, to provide buyers and sellers a good and safe environment.

The Canton Fair unveiled two bees, Hao Bao and Hao Ni, as its mascots on Saturday.

It is the first time the fair, which was first held in 1957, named its own mascot.

Chu Shijia, director of the China Foreign Trade Center, said bees symbolize loyalty, diligence, unity and dedication, and are a positive cross-cultural symbol with international recognition.

"They perfectly correspond to the functions, positioning, roles and contributions of the Canton Fair and can vividly reflect the spirit of the people of the Canton Fair, who are loyal to their mission, and brave in opening-up, reform and innovation," he said.

"It reflects that China actively promotes the development of an open world economy and constructs a community with a shared future for mankind, and that it takes on the role of a big country with its new development, providing new opportunities for the world," Chu said.

The Canton Fair is held twice a year in Guangzhou, in spring and fall, and plays a big part in China's reform and opening-up drive and in promoting China's foreign trade industry.