The first China International Import Expo (CIIE) kicked off in Shanghai on November 5 amid high anticipation from the world. Held against the rising trade protectionism as well as the complicated and changing global economy, it is the world’s first national expo themed with import.

The CIIE demonstrates China’s responsibility and announces the country’s policy to contribute more solutions to the construction and development of an open world economy, the boosting of economic and trade exchanges among countries, and the promotion of global trade and economic growth.

The CIIE is a symbol of China’s efforts to build a new pattern of opening up. The report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has made it clear that China will take action to create a new landscape in all-round opening up.

On one hand, China is the world’s most populous country, as well as the second largest economy, and the second largest importing country. The country’s economy has stepped into a new phase of development featuring steady expansion of consumption. It enjoys large potential for both consumption and import.

On the other hand, to seek for trade surplus is never an intention of China. Instead, China pursues a balance between import and export and actively seeks to expand import. In the next five years, China is expected to import $10 trillion worth of goods and services, providing historical opportunities for enterprises from the world to enter the Chinese market.

The CIIE is an important platform for China and Russia to strengthen effective cooperation at various levels. Currently, the China-Russia relations are showing a strong momentum. In such a context, the CIIE has no doubt provided best opportunities and a broad platform for both sides to expand channels of bilaterally economic and trade cooperation and find new areas of further cooperation.

AS one of the largest participants at the CIIE, Russia has booked an exhibition area of 2,000 square meters that covers a variety of products such as food, agricultural products, garment, consumer goods, smart and high-end equipment, and medical instruments and health care products.

In recent years, China and Russia have attached great importance to the large-scale cooperation projects of strategic importance. Thanks to the docking of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union, the two countries have achieved fruitful results in the promotion of overall cooperation quality by expanding trade scope, optimizing trade structure and exploring new cooperation highlights.

China has maintained the largest trading partner of Russia for eight years in a row. Bilateral trade between the two countries has been kept at a high growth rate since 2018, reaching $67.5 billion in the first eight months, up 25.7 percent from a year ago. The whole-year figure is expected to hit $100 billion.

Moreover, both sides are making active efforts to cultivate more new growth points in such fields as cross-border e-commerce, digital economy, SME cooperation, Far East development, Arctic exploitation.

The first CIIE has released a signal that China will open its door even wider to the world and see increasing demands for import. China welcomes all countries to ride on China's fast train of economic development, and is willing to share its experience and achievements of economic development.

With joint efforts from all sides, it’s believed that the CIIE will live up to the expectation of all participants including Russian enterprises.

(Li Hui is the Chinese Ambassador to Russia.)