More and more Chinese exporters are preparing to travel abroad to expand their sales channels and are booking booth spaces at the offline China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair) in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, this year. These efforts will enable them to conduct more face-to-face meetings with foreign clients, and better understand global market demand and challenges, said Lin Meng, Researcher of Supply Chain Management at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation in Beijing. Amid faltering global trade and softening demand for various goods, owners and sales managers of Chinese export-oriented companies in provinces including Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Fujian and Sichuan have taken both chartered and commercial flights to several countries to participate in business events, such as the Asia Fashion Fair 2022 Tokyo, Food Ingredients Europe 2022 in Paris and China Homelife Dubai 2022 over the past two months.
Together with the government’s latest opening-up measures, these moves will help stabilize China’s foreign trade in the first half of the year. Participating in international exhibitions can be a practical way for Chinese exporters to build relationships with new clients, judging from the deals sealed in overseas markets over the past two months, said Lian Ping, Chief Economist at Zhixin Investment. Facing fierce competition from Southeast Asian countries, high energy prices and surging inflationary pressure in the U.S. and Europe, China must step up its efforts to stabilize foreign trade and avoid a decline in foreign trade growth, said Lian.
The Zhejiang provincial government has made plans to organize more than 1,000 business delegations to explore overseas markets this year, with over 10,800 companies participating. “Support will be granted to companies in fields such as funding sources and approval processes,” said Chen Zhicheng, Deputy Director General of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce. In December alone, Zhejiang’s 20 economic and trade delegations attracted overseas orders valued at more than CNY18 billion. Planning to send 100 delegations and sales representatives from more than 1,000 companies abroad between January and April this year, Ningbo, one of Zhejiang’s export hubs, has also set a goal to gain USD10 billion in foreign trade orders by the end of April, the China Daily reports.
