The third annual China-ASEAN Expo ended here on Friday with a trade volume totaling 1.27 billion U.S. dollars, up 10.2 percent from last year, according to the Expo's organizing committee.
With the exports of 1.03 billion dollars, imports of 75 million dollars and the domestic trade of 167 million dollars, this year's Expo enjoyed brisk trade growth, announced Li Jinzao, deputy director of the organizing committee at a press conference.
Trade in mechanical equipment stood at 635 million dollars, accounting for half of the total, followed by electronic products, agricultural products and farming materials, he said.
Traded goods at the Expo has shifted from agricultural products like fruits and vegetables in 2004 to industrial products this year, said Zhang Xiaoqin, an official with the Secretariat of the Expo.
The growing trade of mechanical and high-tech products at the Expo demonstrates changes in the two-way trade between China and ASEAN countries, said Zhang.
More than 130 contracts on international projects, including investments of 5.85 billion dollars, were signed at the Expo, a 10. 5-percent growth as compared with last year.
The total contractual investments included 2.56 billion dollars by Chinese investors to projects in ASEAN countries.
PLATFORM FOR SEEKING BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
The four-day third China-ASEAN Expo attracted the attendance of more than 2,000 enterprises from China, all the 10 ASEAN member countries and many other countries and regions around the world. They regarded the Expo as a platform for seeking business opportunities.
"I have never seen in Vietnam an exhibition of such a large scale. The China-ASEAN Expo offers us huge business opportunities. This is my first time to be here. Our company is looking for sales agents in China," said Cian Quynh Ca, with Vietnam's Tehuco company which mainly sells vegetables and fruits.
"Though our company has not decided which agent to collaborate, the Expo makes it convenient for us to negotiate with potential partners from across the world. I can talk to dozens of enterprise representatives every day," Ca added.
Ma To Huong, international sales manager of a Vietnamese coffee company who has come to the Expo for three consecutive years, told Xinhua that the Expo had provided them with a number of business opportunities.
Huong said her company found a local partner in Guangxi at the second China-ASEAN Expo in 2005. "We have already set up two chain coffee stores in
Nanning in the past year. We hope to find a partner outside Guangxi this year, so we can sell our products to other parts of China," she said.
Liu Shanle, sales manager of the Shandong Lingong Construction Machinery Co., Ltd, who hopes to enter the ASEAN market by taking advantage of this Expo, told Xinhua that he struck a deal with a Nanning-based Longgong Electromechanical Device at the first China- ASEAN Expo in 2004 for entrusting the latter to sell his digging machines to Vietnam from 2005.
"We sold over 20 such machines altogether to Vietnam in 2005. Thanks to the tax-rebating policy, we have gained more profits in Vietnam than in the domestic market," said Wang Fujun, Longgong's CEO. Wang has found another partner to sell his machines in other ASEAN countries at this year's Expo.
