CIIE announces 2020's foreign exhibitors

The China International Import Expo Bureau on Thursday announced the first batch of 143 foreign enterprises to exhibit at the third expo in November.

Almost 40 percent are Fortune Global 500 enterprises, while over 50 percent are leaders in their industries. 

Together this batch of enterprises will cover an exhibition area exceeding 100,000 square meters, with over 60 companies signing for booths of more than 600 square meters each.

The bureau chose to release the list eight months before the launch of this year’s CIIE so exhibitors and buyers can have more time to prepare. 

Yao Guoliang, general manager of Roche Diagnostics China, said announcing participating companies ahead of time would give enterprises more space to seek business opportunities, explore more sales channels and meet more partners, and at the same time make better use of the CIIE platform.

“The earlier release of exhibitors also leaves more time for buyers to reach out to participating companies, thus we can take our time to build connections and coordinate with exhibitors in advance to facilitate potential transactions and cooperation,” said Zhang Jing, assistant general manager at China Eastern Aviation Import & Export Corp, who is also leader of China Eastern Airlines Group’s CIIE trading workgroup.

Amore Pacific, a South Korean beauty product company attending its third expo, said it attached great importance to the annual event, and had doubled the numbers of brands and products exhibited at the second CIIE compared with the first.

“This year, our booths will cover an overall exhibition area twice as large as that in the previous session, to show a richer variety of high-quality products and technologies,” said Charles Kao, president of Amore Pacific China.

The company also said it would conduct research on beauty trends in China to push forward localization, making targeted improvements and adjustments in accordance with the need and preference of Chinese customers.

Japanese electronics giant Panasonic, meanwhile, signed its agreement to take part in the third CIIE as long ago as August last year, saying the company had benefited a lot from the previous two events.

During the second expo, the company exhibited key products and cutting-edge technologies, attracting more than 210,000 people visitors to its 1,000- square-meter booth, said Zhao Bingdi, managing officer of Panasonic China and Northeast Asia Co.

Greater attention will be paid to health care and cleaning to better help Chinese customers live a healthier, higher quality life, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak, Zhao said.

Hoffmann-La Roche AG, a Swiss multinational health-care company is also preparing its third CIIE.

Roche Diagnostics signed letters of intent worth a total of around 2.1 billion yuan (US$300 million) during the second expo, and expects the platform to help it promote more advanced diagnostic test kits for the Chinese market.