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Background on 89th China Export Commodities Fair
The 89th China Export Commodities Fair (CECF), which began Sunday, April 15, is the largest of its kind in China and viewed by trade experts as the prime indicator in measuring China's foreign trade performance.
About 100,000 businessmen at home and abroad are expected to attend the 12-day fair, involving more than 3,000 selected export- oriented companies in China.
The biannual event held in April and October in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong province, normally accounts for about one-tenth of China's total export volume.
The trade fairs dates back to early 1957, when the First China Export Commodities Fair was launched in a bid by China to break the economic blockade imposed by some Western countries.
About 100,000 businessmen attended last spring's trade fair, clenching export deals valued at a record of US$14.9bn, compared with the total export volume of US$18m signed by 1,023 businessmen, mostly from neighboring Hong Kong and Macao at the first trade fair.
The fairs have witnessed the rapid expansion of China's foreign trade over the past two decades as China opened wider to the outside world.
Before 1980s only 11 companies, all State-owned, and their branches were authorized to specialize in foreign trade in China.
To date, the number of foreign trade companies has mushroomed to about 10,000, and a growing number of manufacturers, including overseas-funded companies and private ones, are also authorized by law to engage in foreign trade.
Despite competition from other trade fairs in Shanghai and other parts of the country, the Guangzhou-based fair remains dominant in China.
The number of businessmen attending the fairs and the total export volumes continued to rise even in 1998 and 1999, when southeast Asian countries, one of China's major foreign trade partners, were affected by financial crisis.
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