First exhibits for 136th Canton Fair arrive in Guangdong

The first products to be exhibited at next month's 136th Canton Fair arrived in Guangzhou City in south China's Guangdong Province on Wednesday.

The products passed customs clearance procedure and are ready to be displayed before potential customers from China and the world at the major trade fair, which is scheduled to open on Oct. 15 in Guangzhou. The first shipment of 43 different products are mainly household appliances from Egypt, including gas stoves, washing machines, ovens, weighing more than 3 tonnes. The exhibits are to be transported to the Canton Fair Complex on Pazhou Island in Guangzhou.

Local customs, ports, and related enterprises have been working to streamline the logistics procedure and facilitate the whole preparation process.

"We have established special customs clearance windows for Canton Fair exhibits, providing round-the-clock service for participating companies to schedule customs clearance. Priority is given to handling procedures such as declaration, inspection, sampling, and testing. Additionally, we coordinate with the port to prepare berths, hoisting, and shifting arrangements for Canton Fair exhibits in advance, and closely follow up on regulatory operations such as shipboard inspections and container unloading inspections," said Qin Yi, the head of Nansha Port inspection sector under Guangzhou Customs.

"This is our third consecutive year of handling Canton Fair inbound exhibits. In recent years, the exhibition industry has continued to thrive, and the quantity and variety of Canton Fair exhibits have significantly increased. After the cargo arrives at the port customs, the inspection and clearance procedures are getting faster and more efficient. The whole process is quite smooth," said Li Cong, the general manager assistant of Sinotrans Beijing Fairs and Events Logistics Co.

Beyond the ports, Guangdong Customs is also working to ensure preparations for the fair run smoothly.

"We have set up a special customs clearance window for Canton Fair exhibits at the site and developed a 'Smart Expo' information system to provide round-the-clock online and offline customs clearance scheduling for participating companies. We have also established 'Canton Fair Guest Express Lanes' at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and Pazhou Hong Kong-Macao Ferry Terminal to ensure the smooth customs clearance of personnel participating in the Canton Fair," said Guo Rong, the secondary officer of the Customs of the Canton Fair Complex First Inspection Office under Guangzhou Customs.

The Canton Fair, also known as the China Import and Export Fair, is China's longest-running, largest, most comprehensive, and most widely attended international trade event.

This year's Canton Fair will include 55 different exhibition sections and approximately 74,000 booths.

From Oct. 15 to Nov. 4, over 29,000 enterprises from home and abroad are expected to showcase all varieties of products.

First exhibits for 136th Canton Fair arrive in Guangdong

The recently-approved action plan for stabilizing foreign investment has attracted a new wave of foreign-funded projects across China.

Formulated to ensure stable foreign investment in 2025, the action plan was approved by a State Council executive meeting last month.

Under the plan, China will support pilot regions in effectively implementing opening-up policies related to such areas as value-added telecommunications, biotechnology and wholly foreign-owned hospitals, providing whole-journey services for foreign-invested projects in these sectors.

In a foreign-funded intelligent manufacturing factory in Suzhou of east China's Jiangsu Province, engineers are making final adjustments to a vehicle-mounted display production line with an annual production capacity of 650,000 units, which is expected to contribute an annual increase in output value of 1.3 billion yuan (about 179.5 million U.S. dollars).

"In addition to the new production line, we will invest an additional 50 million yuan (about 6.9 million U.S. dollars) or so to upgrade the old production line this year, which can also realize automated and digitized production," said Ge Fengchen, general manager of Harman Suzhou branch.

In a smart factory of a foreign-funded elevator production company in Guangzhou City of south China's Guangdong Province, two intelligent production lines have just been put into use.

In addition to the Guangzhou factory, this intelligent production line is also scheduled to be put into use in its factories in Shanghai, Tianjin and Chengdu.

"This production line integrates a central control system, a joint control system, and an automatic positioning system. While using the (digital) twin technology on the management platform and automated inspection of the entire process, the production line is able to predict and prevent possible failures," said Jia Yuhui, president of Hitachi Elevator (China) Co., Ltd.

In January alone, a total of 4,229 foreign-invested enterprises were newly established nationwide with 97.59 billion yuan of paid-in foreign investment, increasing by 27.5 percent from December last year, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Commerce.

"In recent years, the utilized foreign investment in the park has maintained a high growth, and a number of high-quality projects have been launched. The paid-in foreign investment in the first quarter of this year is expected to reach 1 billion U.S. dollars, maintaining growth momentum," said Liu Hua, vice chairman of the Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee.

China's favorable policy attracts new wave of foreign-funded projects