Fair adapts to China's changing economy

As a showcase for China's growing economic strength, the China Import and Export Fair has evolved into the world's largest event for international trade.

In the spring of 1957, the Chinese government decided to hold the first China Export Commodities Fair twice a year in Guangzhou, the capital city of South China's Guangdong province.

Then the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai gave it a shorter name, the Canton Fair, which later became its more familiar name in the international business community.

The fair was a major step for the Chinese economy in the 1950s.

Within the context of the Cold War, Western countries had imposed economic blockades and embargoes against China in the decades following the founding of the New China in 1949.

However, through the Canton Fair, which served as the most important platform to facilitate exports - mostly primary industrial products such as farm produce and minerals - China increased foreign exchanges and was able to buy more overseas equipment and products for its economic recovery.

Since the late 1970s, when China began to implement reforms and its opening-up strategy, the Canton Fair has become an important platform to help Chinese companies go global.

Over the past six decades, the Chinese economy has evolved from its recovery in the 1950s and self-reliance development in the early decades of the New China, to opening-up period in the late 1970s. Today the country has grown into the world's second-largest economy, with its foreign trade ranking first in the world.

Throughout the process, the Canton Fair has served as a prime platform for facilitating business connections with the rest of the world, a pilot for the country's foreign trade reforms and a portal through which the outside world is able to learn about China and Chinese firms can go global.

According to the China Foreign Trade Centre, the organizer of the event, a total of 7.64 million overseas professional buyers have attended the fair since 1957. Total export deals amount to $1.2 trillion.

As it is one of the world's top trade shows in terms of scale and influence, former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao praised the Canton Fair as a "showcase and symbol of China's opening-up" when he attended the 100th fair in 2006.

In 2007, the official name of the Canton Fair was changed from the China Export Commodities Fair to the China Import and Export Fair, showing the Chinese government's determination to balance trade.

Since the 101st fair in the spring of 2007, there has been an International Pavilion dedicated to imported products and services from overseas.

After 10 years' development, the International Pavilion reached 20,000 square meters at the 119th fair this spring, attracting more than 600 exhibitors from overseas.

As the Canton Fair has tried to equalize its emphasis on both imports and exports, it has become a bridge for Chinese businesses to go global and for foreign companies to enter the Chinese market.

Zhang Ruimin, CEO of household appliance giant Haier Group, said his company has grown with the Canton Fair.

"Canton Fair is a crucial platform that helps us to explore the international market," Zhang said.

Holona Felix, a professional buyer from Germany, said during the 119th fair: "The Canton Fair has saved us a lot of time and money to purchase China-made products, which are now more competitive in the international market due to their improving quality."

During the new era in which growth is powered by innovation, the Canton Fair will shift its focus from promoting "made in China" to promoting "created in China".

To this end, the fair will emphasize China's self-developed brands, protection of intellectual property rights and the application of new information technology.

Jin Xing, Zhou Sufen and Wang Yuxuan contributed to the story.

zhuanti@chinadaily.com.cn