The 19th China ASEAN Expo (hereinafter referred to as the "ASEAN Expo") and China ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (hereinafter referred to as the "Summit") were opened in Nanning, Guangxi. With the theme of "Sharing New Opportunities of RCEP and Boosting Version 3.0 of China ASEAN Free Trade Area", the Expo aims to promote cooperation in various fields and build a closer China ASEAN community of shared future.
New opportunities bring confidence
At this year's East China Expo, enterprises from all over the world are enthusiastic about participating in the Expo. Not only are there Chinese enterprises such as China Energy Construction Corporation, COSCO Shipping, National Energy Group, Guodian Group, Sinopec, but also foreign leading enterprises such as Indofu Group, Laos Xingcan Group, Malaysia National Petroleum, Singapore Taiping Shipping, Vietnam Zhongyuan Coffee, and Mitsubishi Business of Japan. Statistics show that the total number of enterprises participating in the Expo is 1653, and it is estimated that more than 2000 enterprises will participate in the Expo.
The fragrant coffee, soft and fragrant cheese products, flavored beef granules wrapped in sugar paper, beautiful gold ornaments, silverware carving, mahogany furniture... After the last East China Expo, the Vietnam Pavilion left a deep impression on the visitors. This time, Vietnam will directly "pack the museum" and push more Vietnamese featured boutiques into the Chinese market. In addition, the booth demand and exhibition scale of Laos, Myanmar, Singapore and the Philippines also increased significantly.
The total exhibition area of the Expo is 102000 square meters, the total number of planned booths is about 5400, and the foreign exhibition area accounts for about 30%, which has recovered to the pre epidemic level.
With the entry into force and implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), the construction of the China ASEAN Free Trade Area (Version 3.0) is about to start. This year's East China Expo actively embraces emerging new situations and opportunities, and unleashes new momentum of regional investment cooperation under the context of RCEP implementation.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the ROK, as well as the "Year of Cultural Exchange between China and the ROK". As one of the RCEP member countries, South Korea once again served as a special partner of the East China Expo after 2015. At this year's East China Expo, South Korea not only set up a national pavilion to display its national image and featured goods, but also held the "2022 South Korean Enterprises' Visit to Guangxi" for the first time, and held a series of activities for invited partners to expand new business opportunities.
In addition, the Expo also continued to hold the "2022 Japanese Enterprise Guangxi Branch", which was attended by more than 30 multinational companies including Mitsubishi Corporation, Sumitomo Bank and Japan Airlines.
"With the support of the East China International Fair, we have organized more than 60 exhibitors to display new lighting technologies, new products and new ideas, and held a number of academic forums, technology salons and docking conferences to show the strength and style of China's lighting technology to the outside world, and to promote China's lighting technology, products, standards and industries to go global." Liu Zhenglei, president of China Illumination Society, said.
According to Wu Zhengping, director of the Foreign Trade Development Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce of China, this year's East China Expo also provides post exhibition shopping services for overseas exhibits for the first time. If the exhibition period has not been fully sold, you can enter the China ASEAN Characteristic Commodity Gathering Center for free, so as to achieve the sales and regular exhibition of exhibits. In addition, more than 3500 pairs of accurate matching services will be provided for domestic and foreign customers during the meeting.
Sharing of RCEP dividends
The population, total economic output and trade volume of RCEP account for about 30% of the world's total, which contains huge market potential. High quality implementation of RCEP, sharing the dividends of regional integration and promoting prosperity and development are the common expectations of the business communities of all member countries. To this end, this year's East China Expo will specially hold a series of activities and exhibitions related to RCEP to build a high-level cooperation platform for the integration and development of RCEP regional economy.
The ASEAN and RCEP boutique exhibition areas, which were set up for the first time, showed the overall image of ASEAN countries and launched a large number of key cooperation projects for RCEP member countries, to promote China and ASEAN and other RCEP member countries to deepen commodity trade, investment cooperation and service trade exchanges.
"This year's imported exhibits are mainly ASEAN countries' characteristic food, cosmetics, etc., with the number more than double that of last year." Yang Kai, deputy director of Yongzhou Customs Office under Nanning Customs, said that the exhibits of RCEP member countries gathered for the first time at this year's East China Expo, reflecting the significant improvement of the international attraction and influence of the East China Expo.
During the East China Expo, the China ASEAN Business Leaders Forum and the RCEP Special Dialogue on Business Cooperation under the framework of the Summit was held in Nanning on September 17. The Forum released the Development Report of the China ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (2004-2021) and the ASEAN Business Environment Report (2022). At the same time, Guangxi Liaison Office of China Japan Korea Business Council and Guangxi Liaison Office of China Committee of RCEP Business Advisory Council were officially settled in Guangxi. These achievements have optimized the business environment and pragmatically promoted the upgrading of the summit.
In addition, the RCEP and ASEAN International Arbitration Summit Forum and the China ASEAN Commercial Legal Cooperation Seminar held under the framework of the Summit also conducted in-depth discussions on issues such as jointly promoting the diversification of the international commercial dispute settlement mechanism, and promoted the establishment of the Nanning International Commercial Court in the China ASEAN Free Trade Zone, the ASEAN Court Center of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, and the Guangxi Commercial Mediation Association, Establish a commercial legal service point of Guangxi Chamber of Commerce of China International Chamber of Commerce in all RCEP member countries. These achievements further serve and promote cooperation and exchanges in the field of commercial law among countries in the region.
Boost Free Trade Zone Version 3.0
If the China ASEAN Free Trade Area is compared to a ship, the East China Expo tailored for the Free Trade Area will undoubtedly be a "booster" to push the ship forward.
Statistics show that a total of 1.015 million merchants participated in the first 18 sessions of the East China Expo, which effectively served the construction of the China ASEAN Free Trade Area and the "the Belt and Road". From January to July this year, the trade volume between China and ASEAN reached 544.9 billion US dollars, up 13.1% year on year, accounting for 15% of China's total foreign trade imports and exports. China has maintained ASEAN's largest trading partner status for 13 consecutive years, and ASEAN's status as China's largest trading partner has been further consolidated.
The theme of each Expo closely follows the national key development strategy and the key and hot cooperation areas between China and ASEAN. Focusing on "sharing new opportunities of RCEP and boosting the China ASEAN Free Trade Area version 3.0", this Expo reflects the consensus between China and ASEAN on launching the free trade area version 3.0 as soon as possible and implementing RCEP with high quality, and expresses the determination of the 19th ASEAN Expo to create new opportunities for all parties and achieve higher level cooperation.
"Promoting the construction of the China ASEAN Free Trade Area is the original intention and mission of the East China Expo. The 19th East China Expo helped build the China ASEAN Free Trade Area version 3.0 from four aspects: promoting the high-level to reach new consensus, focusing on new hot spots in the construction of the free trade area, striving for new breakthroughs in economic and trade effectiveness, and promoting new cooperation in more fields." Wei Zhaohui, Secretary General of the Secretariat of the East China International Fair and Director of the Guangxi International Expo Affairs Bureau, said.
"During the conference, more than 80 economic and trade promotion activities will be held, and 77 domestic and foreign professional audience groups will sign up for the conference." Wei Zhaohui said.
It is understood that the signing ceremony of the 19th China ASEAN Expo was held in Nanning on September 16. The parties signed 267 cooperation projects, with a total investment of 413 billion yuan, up 37% from the previous year, and the total investment of the signed projects reached a new high in previous years. With the help of the East China Expo platform, relevant domestic enterprises have also injected strong impetus into the deep integration and development of the region. Among them, 76% of the projects signed by enterprises in key regions, such as the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and Beijing Tianjin Hebei, account for 76%.
