People's Daily reported the comments on the sixth China International Import Expo a few days ago and Professor Yu Miaojie, a deputy to the National People's Congress, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Committee and President of Liaoning University received an interview. The original text and links are as follows:

People's Daily/ Write on the Occasion of the Opening of the Sixth CIIE: a “Four-leaf Clover”, an Exposition Benefiting the Whole World

Reports on Nov. 14 from People's Daily (Li Tong, Jiao Lei and Ouyang Yijia). Surrounded by beautiful four - leaf clovers alongside the Huangpu River, we meet once again at the old place with old and new friends to fulfill our appointment to CIIE.

Themed‘New Era, Shared Future’, the sixth China International Import Expo, short as CIIE, which consists of National Comprehensive Exhibition, Enterprise Business Exhibition, Hongqiao International Economic Forum, specialized supporting activities and people-to-people exchange activities was successfully held from November 5 to 10 at National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai.

As the first global exposition themed export, CIIE emerges as a true platform to promote business activities to a global extent. Under this platform, participating countries and enterprises are active to join while domestic buyers and consumers are ready to reach a deal. ‘Made in China’ and ‘Made for China’ concur here and enjoy equal importance.

Behind a dazzling array of exhibits, the competitions in industrial chains, the invisibility in services and the connection in line with general rules of international trade matter more. China is now transforming itself from a “Wolrd Factory”into a “World Market”while the effects brought by CIIE is like chorus where every country is able to participate.

From “exhibitor”into “investor”: forge a“window”of new development pattern

Living in China yet purchasing global products. The passed weekend saw a sales increase of 2.8 of king crabs imported from Russia in Freshippo with a price decreasing from over one thousand to around 699 RMB. Back in the first CIIE, being a rarity to Chinese people, now the king crabs imported from Russia have been able to be served on the dining tables for ordinary people. Benefited from the spillover effect of CIIE, a batch of online celebrity exhibits from foreign countries has become popular products that admired by Chinese people for a long time.

In retrospect the imported products in recent years, it is notable to find that the  Norwegian Seafood Council launched the “2025 Plan”to further expand its scale in Chinese market and Argentina targeted China as a new growth point in terms of its beef products. Apples imported from New Zealand was given an alluring name-”Adorable Concubine” while Spring Festival turned the slack season of the lobster industry in Maine into the busiest time in the whole year…

An one-week exhibition yet a whole-year service, the exhibition attracts visitors from different directions. This year, the “friend circle” expands to a larger scale, hitting a historical record of 289 enterprises of Fortune 500 and leading enterprises in various industries to participate. It is expected that guests from 154 countries, regions and international organization will join…  

The exposition displays huge charm of Chinese market. Luo Fude, Chairman of the board and CEO of Abbott said, “Being an important exposition of opening to the outside world, we are so delight to participate to 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 show to regular participation and from an “exhibitor”into an “investor”,  the “window effect”of openness in CIIE is becoming notable.

“Just last month, Bayer Pharmaceuticals unveiled its first innovation center in China”. Zhang Lei, Vice President of China Publicity of Bayer noted, “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, “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 is palying an increasingly important role and China’s financial industry is making steady progress ahead in terms of its institutional opening-up, which provides us with broader space to seize the opportunity of Chinese market and leverage the role of financial connectors”.

The positive attitude from participants derives from the efficacy of previous expositions. A few days ago, Sheng Qiuping, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Commerce noted at the press conference hosted by the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, the previous five CIIEs have successfully displayed over 2000 representative products, technologies and services which made their debut, reaching a total of nearly 350 billion USD of intentional turnover.

Participants’ confidence to China’s development can be fully seen through their concrete actions. “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 to China’s economic development and the determination to invest here ”, said a person in charge from Panasonic.

Yu Miaojie, President of Liaoning University said to the reporters of People's Daily that CIIE works like a window to show China’s determination to open up at a high level, the 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, “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 grow to a stronger one to maintain and reinforce its attractiveness to international enterprises and resources”.

Announce important measures on opening up: build and promote 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… Since this year, 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.

“Many major policies on openness at the opening ceremonies of  previous CIIEs have been in place, attracting great attention of China’s progress to promote high level opening up and displaying China’s confidence to build a world economy featuring openness”.  Chen Kai, member of Global Management Committee from Ernst & Young said that as this year marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, facing dual opportunities on these “experimental plots”of CIIE and SFTZ, enterprises are able to roll out new products in fields such as intelligent manufacturing and  biomedicine with constant innovation, playing a positive role in optimizing 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 flew to the whole country and beyond by taking CIIE as an opportunity.

Open the door to make new friends. On this CIIE, many new small and medium-sized enterprises showed their first debut; African agricultural products zone was established for the first time. Participating counties 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, “CIIE serves as a crucial platform for China and is conductive to promote liberalization and facilitation of 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 rise to a new level in terms of its opening up and consumer market in a way 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 profit for the whole world: build public goods that are shared by global citizen

The achievements of opening up can be best measured through data. According to Chinese customs,  in 2022, China’s import and export of goods trade totaled 42.07 trillion RMB, up to 7.7% compared with last year. Among them, import trade reached 18.1 trillion RMB, an increase of 4.3%. The 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 while import 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 participate 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”. Sheng Qiuping 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 find out that CIIE has maintained cooperative mechanisms with many multilateral international organizations such as WTO, G 20, 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” play equal importance for CIIE. The Hongqiao International Economic Forum, themed ‘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 “Hongqiao Wisdom” for the world openness and development.

Link：

 http://finance.people.com.cn/BIG5/n1/2023/1104/c1004-40110279.html