written by Lin Han / translated by Gao Qianqian

CAEXPO and the Big Trade of Goods

written by Lin Han / translated by Gao Qianqian

Over two thousand years ago, in a fairly long time when the ancient Maritime Silk Road was taking shape, people loaded ships with ceramics, tea, spices and gems etc., making voyages between China’s southern ports, the Indian Ocean and even the Atlantic. Facing the sea, they set out to explore the unknown world. For them, each voyage is a risk.

They traveled day and night, braved winds and waves, and reached the other side of the ocean to exchange goods, for there were no direct trading platforms at that time. Now, the ancient Silk Road was revived, and the 12-year-old CAEXPO has become a service platform for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Since its inception, the CAEXPO has been a booster for the construction of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, and now it serves the“Five Approaches” in the construction of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Each year, exhibition booths of the CAEXPO’s Pavilion of Commodity Trade are in great demand, through which an increasing number of advantageous commodities from China and ASEAN have entered each other’s markets, complementing each other's advantages and creating colossal business opportunities.

Focusing on Commodities Complementing Each Other's Advantages

The benchmark for commodities to be exhibited at the CAEXPO is that they should “complement each other's advantages”. Each year, featured products from China and ASEAN, as well as commodities enjoying large trade volume are exhibited, covering a variety of industries. Via the CAEXPO, participants take what they need and return fully loaded.

ASEAN’s advantageous products mainly include agricultural food, furniture &household commodity, handicrafts & jewelry, and bulk raw materials, which are greatly demanded by China. So, the ASEAN products are always in short supply. This has aroused the enthusiasm of relevant ASEAN enterprises, which are increasing in number year after year. Each year, they applied for a large number of booths. As Bong Hon Liong, president of Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce, said, Malaysian enterprises “vie for” the limited booths each year before the CAEXPO was organized.

As the number of enterprises intending to attend the CAEXPO keeps increasing, several ASEAN countries have applied for chartered pavilions since the 2nd CAEXPO. Countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia have chartered pavilions almost each year. Visiting these national pavilions is just like traveling in these countries.

According to many ASEAN enterprises, what they’ve gained in the 3-5 day exhibition outnumber what they could earn from the domestic market in one year, for they could not only tap into the huge Chinese market, but also meet the professional purchasers from all over the world. Apart from exhibiting their products, they have also reached many cooperative intentions. Thailand’s Chia Tai Group, Malaysia’s Royal Selangor, Beerlao of Laos, and jade of Myanmar, have all expanded their export to China via the CAEXPO.

Chinese enterprises attending the CAEXPO also focus on commodities that meet the demand of ASEAN market, such as engineering machinery and transport vehicles, food processing and packaging machinery, electrical equipment, new energy, electronic appliances and building materials. Guangxi’s LiuGong Group, Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group (XCMG), Jiangsu Micoe Solar Energy Co., Ltd., and China Electric Power Construction Group are all frequent visitors of the CAEXPO, through which they have entered the ASEAN market.

At the 2nd CAEXPO, Guangxi’s LiuGong Group, with its advanced technology and favorable prices, attracted the attention of exhibitors from ASEAN and other regions. Since then, it had started its journey to the ASEAN market. But it has never stopped innovation on the road to overseas expansion. As Zhang Erping, director and chief engineer of the technical center of LiuGong Group, denoted, they had acclimatized their products to meet the needs of local users.

Platforms gather talents; competitive power makes one goes farther. The CAEXPO and enterprises attending it have realized win-win results through common development.

A Great Platform for the 21st-Century-Maritime-Silk-Road Trade

Different from the ancient Maritime Silk Road, commodities being traded on the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road are no longer restricted in primary commodities like silk, tea and spices, but extended to a wider range of products and even technologies. 2015 is the Year of China-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation. How could the CAEXPO better serve the construction of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road?

As the China-ASEAN Expo Secretariat introduced, the 12th CAEXPO will take this opportunity to highlight the theme of“co-building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road”. It will focus on “maritime cooperation”, form ocean-industrycentered upstream and downstream industrial chains, and display relevant products, technologies and projects. Infrastructure construction is the key for the construction of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. So the Pavilion of Commodity Trade of the 12th CAEXPO will exhibit machinery & equipment, transport vehicles, and construction materials. Besides, itexhibit electronic appliances, food, agricultural products, andicrafts & jewelry, furniture and household appliances etc., and continue to hold the Agricultural Exhibition and Light Industry Exhibition, set up the ASEAN Brand Exhibition Pavilion and ASEAN Bulk Commodity Exhibition Pavilion, and organize more ASEAN leading enterprises and bulk commodity enterprises to attend the CAEXPO.

The China-ASEAN Expo Secretariat also claimed that the 12th CAEXPO would make more efforts to invite purchasers and organize purchasing groups on a larger scale. At the same time, the China-ASEAN Merchant Database will be open for business matching. Meetings such as Investment Promotion Conference for Chinese Key Provinces/Cities and the 10 ASEAN Countries, and matching conferences specialized in machinery, electronics, building materials, food and agricultural products have promoted the supply and demand between Chinese and ASEAN enterprises, creating more business opportunities for them to expand their potential markets.

Moreover, with the advancement of RCEP negotiations, the CAEXPO starts to serve the cooperation between ASEAN, China, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand (“10+6”), rather than serve the “10+1” cooperation. The extension from “10+1”to “10+6” shows that the CAEXPO is becoming more internationalized, which means that the CAEXPO’s Commodity Trade Exhibition as well as other themed exhibitions will be enriched and diversified in the future.