Commodities event brings more trade opportunities

This year's China Yiwu Imported Commodities Autumn Fair is offering participants even more trade opportunities with the addition of an import commodity incubation area which opened on Nov 13.

The ongoing exhibition, which started on Nov 13 and will end on Nov 27 in Yiwu in East China's Zhejiang province, focuses on goods for everyday consumption, such as home furnishings, mother and baby products, cosmetics, alcoholic drinks and food.

Visitors to the exhibition can visit the incubation area, which covers an area of 120,000 sq m and boasts 189 trade entities, for negotiating sales of commodities.

The incubation area is promoting direct sales by foreign businesses and direct marketing at national pavilions.

Noted cross-border e-commerce platforms such as JD have opened stores in the area, where customers can buy popular overseas goods.

Visitors to the exhibition can also relax in the incubation area for a meal or something to drink, and children can play in the play area or experience virtual reality applications.

Yiwu has taken many opportunities to promote import trade in recent years, especially after Shanghai hosted the first China International Import Expo in November 2018.

The city aims to offer global small and medium-sized enterprises display and trade platforms for their goods throughout the year via the six-day import fair in Shanghai, the 15-day autumn fair and the incubation area which serves companies and brands all year round.

Yiwu also wants to help China's importers to efficiently find quality overseas commodities and distribution channels in the country.

The autumn fair attracted more than 20 exhibitors which also attended the China International Import Expo held from Nov 5 to 10. German-based Bosch, a Fortune Global 500 company, is displaying household products such as smart locks.

A Canadian trade promotion association and seven companies that attended the Shanghai import expo focusing on healthcare products and clean energy, are attracting many customers wishing to be more environmentally friendly and improve life quality.

Seven corporate booths at the Malaysian national pavilion are displaying latex pillows, white coffee and durian as well as promoting popular tourist destinations. Wine importers and agents from more than 10 major wine producing countries, such as France, Australia, Chile, Spain and Italy, have formed display groups to attend the exhibition.

The autumn exhibition has a British national pavilion for the first time and the China-Britain Business Council together with eight noted brands from the UK are on display.

The brands include royal umbrella brand Fulton and supermarket Waitrose. On Nov 13, visitors were welcomed by Scottish bagpipe performances and invited to taste English afternoon tea and Scottish whiskey.

To better serve professional purchasers, the exhibition has also organized activities such as an import trade promotion conference, an overseas new product launch event and a business negotiation meeting for large malls, supermarkets and cross-border e-commerce companies.

songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/20/2019 page16)