Foreign companies see increasing demand for healthcare, healthy food

The Chinese market is seeing a continuously optimized business environment and increasing demand for healthcare and healthy food products, giving foreign companies a steadily promising prospect of business expansion in China through the 7th China International Import Expo (CIIE), said business executives at a matchmaking event on Wednesday in Shanghai.

The matchmaking meeting is part of a series of events to celebrate the upcoming 100-day countdown to this year's expo, which will be held from Nov 5 to 10 in Shanghai.

The matchmaking targeted buyers and exhibitors from the food and agricultural products, and medical equipment and healthcare products exhibition areas. Attracting over 200 local buyers, more than 80 exhibitors from the two exhibition areas attended the meeting and gave a sneak peek of their exhibits onsite, including PepsiCo, Lesaffre, Dole, Secco, France Fortress, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Siemens Healthineers, and Elekta.

"China's action plan (issued earlier this year) to promote large-scale equipment renewals is creating new opportunities for the medical industry. We will bring the most products to either make their world or Asia debut at this year's CIIE. The expo provided us a premier platform to communicate with clients, as well as to show the public about the complicated and professional medical equipment," said Lena Wang, vice-president of Siemens Healthineers Greater China, during the matchmaking.

Similarly, it will be showcasing several new products at this year's expo, including the FARAPULSE Pulsed Field Ablation System to make its CIIE debut.

Da Bo, vice-president of Boston Scientific China, said that the CIIE, coming annually as scheduled, fully demonstrated the high certainty and consistency of China's business environment, and has continuously strengthened the company's confidence in investing in China.

Eyeing Chinese consumers' demand for oral beauty products, Tracel, a beauty nutritional drink brand from New Zealand, will also make its CIIE debut this year.

"In recent years, we see the demand in the Chinese market for healthcare products, especially female consumers' demand for oral products is continuously growing. The sales of our product has exceeded 5 million yuan ($687,132) in the first month after its debut on Tmall Global (the cross-border e-commerce site of Alibaba Group), ranking top of its kind. Through CIIE, we hope more consumers will get to know and trust the brand," said Charlie Wang, chief marketing officer of Tracel Health.

Maui Food Group, a company specializing in sheep milk, will participate in the expo for the seventh time, and is looking to offer Chinese consumers more diverse options.

"From the first CIIE to the sixth edition, we have seen our sales in the Chinese market has tripled. We see Chinese consumers are caring more about the safety and quality of products, and are becoming more rational in making decisions," said Mandy Xu, the company's marketing director.

Dole will also become a seven-time CIIE exhibitor this year, sharing the same sentiments.

"Over the years, we have seen the rapid development of China's economy. The consumption trends and purchasing scenarios in the Chinese market have been changing rapidly every day too. We are also pleased to note that Chinese consumers' demand for high-quality fruits is also rising. They are more conscientious about what they eat, and if they are healthy. They care more about the quality, freshness, taste and nutrition of the food," said Vivian Wang, Dole's China marketing director.

Buyers at the CIIE are noticing the same trends. During the matchmaking, Shanghai-based retailer HotMaxx signed a cooperation agreement with the CIIE Bureau, the expo's organizer.

"We have about 1,000 stores across China now, and the HotMaxx store is like a 'never-ending' CIIE. The products sold at our stores will be fully updated in one-month on average. It means each time when a customer walks into our stores, he will be able to find something new, which is actually similar to the CIIE. We look forward to partnering with the CIIE exhibitors and hope to come back in every edition," said Nick Zhang, co-founder of HotMaxx.