Seminar spotlights global spirit of CIIE

The China International Import Expo, a key platform of China supporting its high-level opening-up efforts, is expected to continue to create huge business opportunities for participating foreign enterprises, big and small, experts and government officials told a seminar on Friday.

The annual expo's sixth edition, which will be held offline in Shanghai in November, will help them tap China's supersized market, besides injecting more positive energy into the global economic recovery that has been facing gloomy prospects, they said.

Sun Shangwu, deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily, said the CIIE has quickly evolved over the last five years into a window showcasing China's efforts in promoting its new dual-circulation development pattern.

Now, the CIIE, he said, is a platform to boost high-level opening-up and a global public good for the world to share. The annual expo plays an important role in global economic development.

The dual-circulation development pattern focuses on the domestic economy while stressing a positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows.

Chen Chunjiang, assistant minister of commerce, said, "The expo is a major decision made by China's top leadership to promote a new round of high-level opening-up, and a key move of China to actively open its market wider to the rest of the world."

Chen also said the CIIE will be held fully offline this November as scheduled.

Their remarks headlined a seminar in Beijing on the global promotion of the CIIE. The event was jointly initiated by the CIIE Bureau and the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), and organized by China Daily.

According to the CIIE Bureau, the expo's organizer, as of Wednesday, more than 500 companies had signed up for the sixth edition, and over 200,000 square meters of exhibition area had been booked.

Supported by big data, the expo this year will provide matchmaking between buyers and sellers as accurately as possible, and strive to invite more buyers targeted by exhibitors this year in various ways, the bureau said.

Sun said: "With growing influence and increasingly positive global feedback, the CIIE is a testimony to China's deepening opening-up.

"In the past five years, participating companies, from industry leaders listed in the Fortune Global 500 to small firms from underdeveloped countries, have all benefited greatly from the CIIE. Their stories with the CIIE are vivid examples of China pushing economic globalization toward being more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all."

Business executives of multinational companies also spoke highly of the CIIE.

Zhang Xiqiang, chairman and CEO of Nestle SA Greater China, said the CIIE not only brings together a vast array of global products and services but also serves as an ideal platform for in-depth dialogues and cooperation.

"The CIIE is not only bringing the best of innovation from the world to China, but also showcasing the best of innovation of the country to the world," said Fabrice Megarbane, L'Oreal North Asia Zone president and CEO of L'Oreal China.

Lan Zhenzhen, chief corporate affairs and engagement officer of L'Oreal North Asia and China, said the CIIE, as the world's first import-themed national-level expo, is expected to further help MNCs to capitalize on the huge potential of China's supersized market.