89th China Export Commodities Fair Opens

89th China Export Commodities Fair Opens

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The 89th China Export Commodities Fair (CECF), the largest of its kind in China, opened Sunday in Guangzhou, capital city of south China's Guangdong Province.

The 12-day fair, viewed by trade experts as the prime indicator in measuring China's foreign trade performance, has attracted about 100,000 businessmen at home and abroad, involving more than 3,000 selected export-oriented companies in China.

Guangdong governor Lu Ruihua and Sun Zhenyu, vice-minister of foreign trade and economic cooperation (MOFTEC), attended the opening ceremony of the fair.

Held biannually in April and October in Guangzhou, the fair normally accounts for about one-tenth of China's total export volume.

By Saturday, some 3,198 overseas business people from 95 countries and regions worldwide had checked in at the fair.

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 14.9 billion US dollars, compared with the total export volume of 18 million US dollars signed by 1,023 businessmen, mostly from neighboring Hong Kong and Macao at the first trade fair.

Origin of China Export Commodities Fair To keep pace with the vigorous development in China as well as the trade relations and amicable exchanges between China and the rest of the world, the Exhibition of Chinese Export Commodities (the precedent of Chinese Export Commodities Fair) was established in the autumn of 1956. The first Fair was staged in the former Sino-Soviet Friendship Building in the spring of 1957. Looking back at the forty years traversed by the Trade Fair, we can well see that tremendous changes have come off in every aspect of the Fair such as the Fair's exhibition space, products for export, number of foreign visitors, business turnover, and so on. The Fair serves as a historical witness to the development of China's foreign trade, it has faithfully recorded the pace of the country's growth.