Xinhua News Agency: "Guangjiao Cloud, Mutual Benefit for the World" - Spokesperson of the Canton Fair Responds to Hotspot Issues of the Online Canton Fair

On June 9th, Xu Bing, spokesperson for the Canton Fair and deputy director of the China Foreign Trade Center, gave an interview to central media such as Xinhua News Agency and CCTV regarding the online hosting of the 127th Canton Fair

The 127th Canton Fair will be held online from June 15th to 24th. What are the main considerations for hosting the Canton Fair online? What is the significance for the current development of foreign trade? How is the progress of purchasing invitation and other activities? On these issues, the reporter interviewed Xu Bing, spokesperson for the Canton Fair and deputy director of the China Center for Foreign Trade, on the 9th.

The Canton Fair is an important platform for China's opening-up and international trade cooperation, and has never ceased since its establishment in 1957.

"Since this year, affected by the COVID-19, China's foreign trade development has faced unprecedented challenges. In an emergency period, there should be extraordinary moves." Xu Bing said that in order to effectively run and give full play to the role of the Canton Fair as an all-round platform for opening up, help Chinese enterprises expand their markets and maintain their share, the 127th Canton Fair, with the theme of "Canton Fair on the cloud, mutually beneficial to the world", made full use of digital technology to display new products of Chinese and foreign enterprises in the cloud, and create new business opportunities for Chinese and foreign enterprises that are mutually beneficial and win-win.

The online hosting of the Canton Fair is a practical measure to coordinate the promotion of epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development. Xu Bing said that hosting the Canton Fair online not only helps with epidemic prevention and control, but also ensures the normal operation of the Fair, which can help Chinese and foreign enterprises hedge against the impact of the epidemic.

The online hosting of the Canton Fair is an important measure to make every effort to stabilize foreign trade. Xu Bing introduced that in recent years, there have been about 25000 participating companies and about 200000 overseas buyers attending each Canton Fair. The Canton Fair buyers have also driven a large number of post fair transactions. According to research, the post exhibition transaction volume of participating companies accounts for about 80% of their total transaction volume with customers at the Canton Fair.

"Organizing the Canton Fair online in an innovative form without charging exhibition fees to enterprises is beneficial for helping them seize orders, maintain market stability, maintain the openness and stability of the foreign trade industry and supply chain, and enhance the confidence of foreign trade enterprises. It is an important measure to fully do a good job in the 'six stability' work and implement the 'six guarantees' task." Xu Bing said.

The online hosting of the Canton Fair is also an important measure to promote innovative development. Xu Bing stated that moving the Canton Fair to the cloud as a whole is not just a simple replication, but also a conceptual innovation and business process reengineering. It is also a new attempt for the Canton Fair to embrace digitalization at a deeper level, which will further promote the deep integration and integrated development of the fair online and offline, and create more and more business opportunities for cooperation between Chinese and foreign enterprises.

The online hosting of the Canton Fair is a new attempt for buyers, and it also puts higher requirements on their invitations.

"We have implemented the action plan of global marketing promotion and purchaser invitation in a comprehensive, all-round, multi form and multi-level way." Xu Bing introduced that, focusing on the countries along the "the Belt and Road", we will expand the global partners of the Canton Fair; Carry out precision marketing to the old purchasers who have attended the conference in the past five sessions, with a focus on inviting more than 120 companies from the top 250 global retailers who have attended the conference in the past five sessions; From June 2nd to 11th, a series of 23 "cloud promotion" events will be held in 21 countries across five continents.

Xu Bing also introduced that this year's Canton Fair will strengthen the incentive measures for buyers, provide them with "online check-in and offline rewards", strengthen the integration and interaction between online and offline, and enhance the exhibition experience for buyers. In addition, conduct buyer training to ensure that buyers can enter, find, and negotiate effectively.