Foreign companies cash in on China's exhibition boom

TIANJIN, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- For the 13th time attending the China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair), the sixth time joining in the China International Import Expo (CIIE), and the first time participating in the China International Supply Chain Expo last year, William Yu, president of Honeywell China, could be described as an avid business traveler having attended China's various exhibitions while reaping fruitful results.

The motivation behind "chasing" a lot of these expos is to find new partners and business opportunities. More importantly, it showed the company's confidence in prospects for China's economic development, Yu said.

"When we moved our Asia-Pacific headquarters to Shanghai two decades ago, we already regarded the Chinese market as our important engine of business growth and innovation," Yu said, adding that numerous cooperation deals they signed at the expos in 2023 are steadily advancing. The company has already booked their booths at this year's Canton Fair and the CIIE.

Like Honeywell, a growing number of foreign companies see seizing the dynamic opportunities in China as the right choice. As an important window to observe the Chinese economy, China's expos have stimulated the economic upsurge.

According to China's Ministry of Commerce, 3,248 exhibitions of various types were held at professional venues across China from January to September last year, a year-on-year increase of 1.8 times and an increase of 32.4 percent over the same period in 2019.

China has become one of the top three countries in the global exhibition industry, said David DuBois, president and CEO of the International Association of Exhibitions and Events, adding that he is very optimistic that China's exhibition industry will continue to grow rapidly.

"The phenomenon is a vivid example of how China's determination of opening-up drives global economic confidence," said Qu Weixi, vice president of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, an affiliate of the Ministry of Commerce.

Economic globalization has faced headwinds and countercurrents, but China has enhanced the linkage between domestic and international markets and resources with high-density, high-specification and high-quality exhibitions, demonstrating an effective driving role in the development of an open world economy.

Glaston (Tianjin) Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned Finnish enterprise, providing technologies and services of deep processing of glass for industries including construction, solar energy, home appliances and automotive glass, gained many new Chinese partners at the expos.

The company has set up many functional departments including China technology research and development center, quality inspection and testing laboratory and Asian logistics center in Tianjin. It looks forward to deeper cooperation with more Chinese enterprises next year, said Pekka Nieminen, the company's general manager.

Vivian Jiang, chair of Deloitte China, said the steady growth of China's economy has gradually changed the business focus of many multinational companies in China. They constantly increased the added value of their industrial chains in China, forming an environment where Chinese and foreign enterprises compete and advance together.

"China still presents opportunities that cannot be ignored," read an article published on the website of the Royal Bank of Canada Wealth Management in August 2023.

According to the article titled "China's next act in a changing economic order," "with its GDP accounting for 18 percent of the global total, we think the size of China's economy alone demands attention from multinationals."

With a multi-dimensional opening-up to the world, a large market of more than 1.4 billion people, the largest middle-income group, the world's second-largest importer of goods, and a major trading partner of more than 140 countries and regions, China has become a veritable land of opportunities.