International Essay丨The "Changes" and "No Changes" of the 9th CIIE

Since the first China International Import Expo was held in 2018, the "four-leaf clover" has bloomed nine times, and the changes are obvious: the exhibits on the booth are constantly updated, and cooperation outside the booth continues to expand... What remains unchanged is China's determination to expand opening up and its sincerity to share opportunities with the world.

Opportunities, from exhibit display to industrial collaboration and ecological co-construction.

If the first CIIE showed the world, it was a China that chose to respond to closure with openness and actively expanded imports when globalization encountered headwinds. Today, the attractiveness of the Chinese market is no longer just about the huge consumer demand, but also reflected in the comprehensive advantages brought about by industrial transformation and upgrading, technological innovation and development, and the continuous expansion of application scenarios.

This year’s CIIE has more than 480 representative exhibits that were first exhibited globally, first in Asia, and first in China, setting a record high. The new high-end contains new ideas: a split-type endoscopic surgical robot, a cochlear implant that can detect sound at 360 degrees, a 6G terminal prototype... The global cutting-edge technologies were unveiled, highlighting the strong attraction of the Chinese market for innovative resources, and also reflecting the new consumer demands that China is constantly releasing.

There is a dazzling array of exhibits on the booth, and outside the booth is a broader market, deeper industrial collaboration and longer-term investment layout. Michelin brought tires with a ratio of 75% renewable and recycled materials, and the green road continues to advance; AstraZeneca showed up with a 1,000-square-meter booth and announced a number of new developments in its investment of 100 billion in China; Sanofi's "global debut" this year included new drugs originally developed by China; Schneider Electric uses China as the foundation to consolidate its global layout. More and more multinational companies not only attach importance to the sales of products in China, but also choose to root R&D and innovation in China and look to the world based on China.

From an exhibition to an international public good shared by the world, the CIIE has witnessed the leap of China's economy, the arrival of global companies, and the increasingly rich interactions between China and the world.

Communication moves from visible exhibits to invisible connections.

Lu Xinran, Managing Director of Global External Affairs of Vale Brazil, believes that the CIIE is a rare and important platform to listen to the voices of all parties. It can reach customers, value chain partners, government agencies, industry colleagues, media and the public at the same place in a short period of time. This kind of concentrated and in-depth communication is valuable.

Communication does not only occur between industry giants. There are both large enterprise booths and specialty booths of small and medium-sized enterprises; there are both well-known brands from mature markets and an increasing number of specialty products from developing countries. Tesfaye Gabru, an Ethiopian coffee exporter, said that the CIIE helps the company establish direct contact with target customers and creates favorable conditions for brand promotion. Cameroon exhibitors’ “CIIE bags” include sesame, shea butter, specialty coffee and other products. The Hongqiao International Economic Forum released the "Exporting China Capacity Development Report" for the first time this year to help more countries, especially countries in the Global South, improve their export capabilities to China. As a public platform shared by the world, the value of the CIIE is further highlighted.

An exhibition allows companies from different countries to have the opportunity to communicate face-to-face and allows economies at different stages of development to find entry points for cooperation. From supply and demand docking to business negotiations, from national comprehensive exhibitions to corporate business exhibitions, the CIIE not only builds a trade platform, but also an international public platform to communicate ideas, enhance understanding, and build consensus. Economies from different countries, different cultures, and different stages of development find convergences of interests and explore new space for cooperation here.

As the world's first national-level exhibition with an import theme, the CIIE demonstrates China's determination to open up to the outside world. The nine sessions have been fruitful and fruitful, demonstrating that the foundation of China's opening up to the outside world remains unchanged and is of greater quality.

Female entrepreneurs in Cote d'Ivoire look forward to bringing the scenery of their hometown to the Chinese market; the vice president of the Thai Chamber of Commerce looks forward to using the CIIE to further integrate into the Chinese production and supply chain; Medtronic looks forward to relying on the CIIE platform to "collide with new sparks" with customers, government departments, and partners. This annual gathering brings together different expectations.

The more uncertainty the global economy faces, the more precious a stable and broad market becomes. The greater the challenges posed by unilateralism and protectionism, the more prominent the value of open cooperation and mutual benefit will become. The international economic and trade environment has undergone profound changes. The scale of the CIIE continues to expand, the areas of cooperation continue to expand, and the spillover effects are increasingly apparent. This in itself is a vivid practice of China’s unswerving expansion of opening up.

From proactively expanding imports to continuing to optimize the business environment; from promoting trade and investment liberalization and facilitation to steadily expanding institutional openness, China has demonstrated with practical actions that its determination to expand high-level opening up will not change, its determination to share development opportunities with the world will not change, and its determination to promote economic globalization in a more open, inclusive, universally beneficial, balanced, and win-win direction will not change. This is China's firm commitment to the world and also the confidence of companies from all over the world to continue participating in the CIIE and deeply explore the Chinese market.