Postponed East China Fair to open online

The 30th East China Fair, postponed from March due to the COVID-19 outbreak, will be held online from July 13 to 17.

Exhibitors and visitors can take part via the fair’s website — www.ecf.org.cn — from 10am on July 13 to 10pm on June 17.

Shen Weihua, deputy director of Shanghai’s Commission of Commerce, said this year's ECF will provide a round-the-clock online foreign trade platform and set up five major exhibitions in clothing and accessories, textiles and fabrics, home supplies, decorative gifts and modern lifestyles.

The fair will also have special zones for pandemic-prevention material, which will help overseas buyers connect with Chinese manufacturers; domestic sales of commodities originally produced for export; and for cross-border e-commerce.

To date, 14 trade groups have signed up for the fair; a total of 3,520 companies have passed the examination for exhibitors with 71,759 exhibits uploaded; and 21,017 buyers have registered.

The online fair will not charge exhibitors, instead they will be hosted by the government which will set up an online platform with 5 million yuan in reserve to create opportunities for enterprises to reach overseas buyers and maintain the original trade channels, Shen said.

Also, four online "matchmaking sessions" linking buyers and exhibitors via the website will take place from July 13 to 16, for Japanese and South Korean buyers, European and American buyers, those from the Belt and Road regions, and those in the textile and garment industry.

The ECF is China’s largest regional trade fair, featuring traders from around the world, and also has the highest turnover. It is held annually in March in Shanghai, supported by the Ministry of Commerce and organized by Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Shandong, Nanjing and Ningbo.

Last year’s event attracted more than 4,000 exhibitors, including 452 from overseas. Trade deals added up to US$2.31 billion, of which turnover on textiles and garments was US$1.03 billion, and trade in art gifts and consumer goods US$1.2 billion.