Shanghai to Become Purchasing Center for International CorporationsShanghai this year will hold a series of exhibitions and symposiums to attract more international corporations to purchase Shanghai goods, aiming to become their purchasing center in China, said Zhu Xiaoming, director of the Shanghai Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Commission.In recent years, a number of international corporations have come to make large purchases in Chinese cities. Carrefour, the well-known French retail giant, has totally purchased several billion US dollars worth of goods in China. Of Shanghai's US$25.3 billion of exports in 2000, the worth of goods sold to overseas purchasing groups only added up to a little more than 300 million US dollars, which needs to be multiplied by a large margin, considering the fact that many developed countries are boosting their exports through selling goods directly to international corporations. According to a local foreign trade official, the total worth of Shanghai goods to be sold to overseas purchasing groups in 2005 is expected to reach US$7 billion, which will account for approximately 20 percent of Shanghai's annual exports. As more and more international corporations are opening businesses and setting up their purchasing organizations in Shanghai, selling goods directly to the corporations will play an increasingly important role in expanding the city's exports. |
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