KUNMING, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The 7th China-South Asia Expo and the 27th China Kunming Import & Export Fair kicked off on 16th in Yunnan province of China. With theme “solidarity and cooperation for common development”, the five-day event is jointly hosted by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the People's Government of Yunnan Province, and is a significant economic and trade exchange between China and South Asian countries this year.
This year's Expo set up a total of 15 exhibition halls, with a total exhibition area of 150,000 square meters, and the exhibition will be simultaneously displayed online as well.
Besides the opening ceremony hall, there are three halls categorized according to geographic locations, the South Asia Hall, the Southeast Asia Hall, and the Overseas Hall, to promote the economy and trade cooperation and the culture exchanges between China and different regions.
Furthermore, there are nine more halls categorized according to professional exhibition concepts. Such as regional cooperation hall, resource economy hall, economy parks hall, trade ports economy hall, biomedicine and health industry hall, culture and tourism hall, modern agriculture with highland characteristics hall, digital economy hall, and advanced manufacturing hall.
Supported by the digital platform of the expo, a live streaming model has been introduced to this year’s expo, which provides a one-stop service to all the exhibitors. Even those people who are unable to be on site, can visit the exhibition, attend meetings, join negotiations, sign agreements and doing procurement via online platform with cloud service.
With the continuous expansion of the trade scale of the China-South Asia Expo, the trade exchanges between China and South Asian countries have been further strengthened. When the first Expo was held in 2013, the total trade volume between China and South Asian countries was less than 100 billion US dollars. By 2022, the total trade volume has reached nearly 200 billion US dollars, with an average annual growth rate of 8.3%.
China is a major trading partner of South Asian countries. Aquatic products, tea and nuts from South Asian countries are deeply loved by Chinese consumers, and their exports to China continue to increase.
At the same time, the investment of Chinese enterprises in South Asia has been increasing, and up to now, the cumulative investment is close to 15 billion U.S. dollars, and the turnover of completed project contracting is more than 200 billion U.S. dollars, which has made tangible contributions to the development of South Asian countries and regional interconnection.
The China-South Asia Expo was formerly known as the "South Asian Countries Commodity Exhibition", which provided a specialized promotion platform for South Asian commodities. After years of development, the China-South Expo has become a comprehensive exposition platform integrating trade in goods, investment promotion, tourism cooperation and cultural exchanges, and has built an important bridge for China and South Asian countries to expand economic and trade and cultural exchanges with other countries and regions.