Four years on, intl expo provides greater stage for global businesses

HAIKOU -- The fourth China International Consumer Products Expo, which was held from April 13 to 18, broke records for scale, as well as for numbers of new products, visitors and exhibited brands.

A total of 4,019 brands from 71 countries and regions were presented at this year's six-day expo in Haikou, the capital of South China's Hainan province, with those figures respectively increasing 19 percent and 9 percent from last year, according to organizers.

A whopping 1,462 new products were released during the expo, up 45 percent year-on-year, and the number of visitors to the main venue increased 16 percent to 373,000.

The annual expo is China's only national-level consumer products exhibition, and it is the largest consumer expo in the entire Asia-Pacific region.

Non-medicinal sleep solutions provider Air Nutri Solution Inc, which is based in Vancouver, Canada, raked in a revenue of more than 3 million yuan ($422,416) at the expo and has already decided to attend the fifth expo next year, said Li Jingming, assistant to the company's chairman.

Including Air Nutri, a total of 36 companies on Thursday signed contracts to attend the fifth expo next year.

Global businesses in attendance this year displayed novel and upmarket products, seeking business cooperation deals and hoping to woo Chinese consumers.

As the world's second-largest economy, and with a population of 1.4 billion, China has a huge, ever-expanding consumer market.

The country's retail sales of consumer goods climbed 4.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024. Final consumption contributed 73.7 percent to GDP growth in the first quarter, according to the latest data, a clear sign of the Chinese people's growing readiness to spend.

A government work report in March said that the country will expand domestic demand and promote sound economic flows this year, while promoting steady growth in consumer spending.