China News Service, Guangzhou, October 17 (Reporter Cheng Jingwei) On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Canton Fair, the 2026 Pearl River International Trade Forum was held at the Guangzhou Canton Fair Hall on the 16th.
With the theme of "Building a Foundation of Mutual Trust and Working Together for Win-Win Cooperation", this forum brings together representatives from international organizations, top think tanks, leading Chinese and foreign enterprises, business associations, and domestic and overseas exhibitors. It focuses on cutting-edge topics such as new tracks for Chinese enterprises to go overseas, innovative practices of trade and investment integration, and international collaboration in overseas industrial parks under the global economic and trade changes. It fully unleashes the value of the Canton Fair as an effective platform for China to expand high-level opening up to the outside world and promote the construction of an open world economy.
Pascal Lamy, former Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), pointed out in a video speech that mutual trust is the invisible cornerstone that supports the stable and long-term development of international trade. He fully affirmed that the Canton Fair has been a link between China and the world for 70 years, and looked forward to relying on this important platform to build a more balanced trade relationship and deepen mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation.
In the keynote speech session, Jiang Xiaojuan, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, gave an in-depth sharing entitled "From "Going Out" to Native Globalization: New Trends in China's Opening Up". She proposed that the AI era has given rise to a new model of "native globalization", with many technologies, products, and services oriented to the global market from the beginning, which is different from the traditional "going out" path of "domestic first, then overseas".
She analyzed that factors such as the rapid development of digital and intelligent technologies and the improvement of domestic industrial capabilities jointly support China's move into a new stage of native globalization; enterprises need to establish a global vision, create a credible brand image, adhere to mutual benefit and win-win, and simultaneously adapt to the international high-standard compliance system; at the policy level, it is necessary to promote the cross-border flow of innovative elements to be more transparent, convenient and predictable, and to build a solid institutional guarantee for the development of high-level globalization.
In the dialogue session, four Chinese and foreign guests decoded the new trend of Chinese companies going overseas. Huang Yin, managing partner of Ernst & Young South China, pointed out that globalization is gradually moving from a relatively centralized efficiency-based division of labor to a more diversified and networked operating system. Chinese companies' overseas expansion is moving from "product overseas" to "capability overseas", not only exporting goods, but also exporting comprehensive capabilities such as research and development, supply chain, and operation management.
“Businessmen from all over the world come to the Canton Fair not only to look for orders, but also to find global partners with shared values.” Zhu Lei, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliances, shared Gree’s practical journey of participating in the Canton Fair for 31 consecutive years and moving from product overseas to industrial co-construction. In terms of overseas layout, Gree insists on deeply localized operations. For example, the proportion of local employees in the Brazilian factory is as high as 98%, which promotes the brand's deep integration into local society. He pointed out that the goal of enterprises going overseas is to meet the real needs of global consumers, and excellent product strength is the foundation for mutual benefit and win-win results.
Jiang Cong, vice president of the International Business Department of Xiaomi Group, said that trust-building for technological innovation companies going overseas is different from traditional foreign trade. They sell not only goods, but also technical systems, industrial ecology and continuous services. Companies need to rely on hard-core technology, strict compliance operations, and continuous localization investment to slowly build trust in the international market.
From the perspective of international buyers, Can Yildirim, Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer of Xueling Electric, proposed that "the future of cooperation lies in value co-creation." He encouraged Chinese and foreign market entities to view competition and cooperation rationally, and achieve value co-construction by jointly defining product directions, jointly exploring end-user needs, maintaining candid communication, and adhering to business commitments, so as to cope with the challenges brought by the rapidly iterative market environment.
In the sharing session on opportunities and insights, Liang Yutian, deputy director of the Institute of Regional and Country Studies at Sun Yat-sen University, said that my country's opening up has entered a new stage of deep coupling of trade and investment, and overseas industrial parks are an important carrier to achieve trade and investment integration. Enterprises need to face the undercurrent of anti-globalization, strengthen their own business capabilities, actively benchmark international high-standard economic and trade rules, promote the interconnection of domestic and foreign rules, regulations, management, and standards, and open up a broad new space for Sino-foreign industrial collaboration.
