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On November 7, the “Meet at CIIE 2024 Nanjing Special Economic and Trade Matchmaking Conference” was held in Shanghai. This supply and demand matchmaking conference was held in Nanjing for the first time in the CIIE venue. It not only built a platform for direct dialogue and communication for domestic and foreign companies, but also achieved a good result of signing contracts worth more than 3 billion yuan in one fell swoop. The signed categories covered 18 projects including offset printing machines, medical devices, health products, beauty and personal care tools, grain and oil agricultural products, and frozen meat products, which also revealed many signals.
Nanjing Langchi Group Mechanical & Electrical Co., Ltd., which has participated in the CIIE for seven consecutive years, is here again this year. “Unlike large-scale exhibitions such as the Canton Fair, we participate in the CIIE as import buyers. This exhibition is very different from previous years.” Yang Heng, director of the company’s import and export business department, told reporters, “The most intuitive feeling is that the popularity is higher and the exhibitors are more enthusiastic about participating. In terms of enterprise scale, there may be more large companies in previous years, but this year, many small and medium-sized enterprises have also come to participate, which also shows that the attractiveness of the Chinese market to foreign countries is increasing.”
As a long-established company dedicated to providing intelligent manufacturing solutions, automation engineering and equipment sales services and solutions to manufacturing companies, Langchi Electromechanical is also the largest distributor and long-term partner of German technology giant Siemens in East China. “We have signed a full-year order worth US$200 million with Siemens this year for 2025, including their new product released at the CIIE – a new software architecture that integrates multiple AI applications, which also makes us very interested. We will apply it to the future transformation and upgrading of digital factories to better serve our customers.”
This year’s national exhibition has a total of 77 countries and international organizations participating, more than the previous one. Not only are there the most local economic and trade products and cultural exhibitions, but also a variety of experience activities such as massage experience and cooking courses are also online, which are beautiful, delicious and fun to visit.
In addition to “old partners”, making “new friends” has also become an important goal for companies to attend the conference. Yang Heng was impressed by the fact that the booths of countries along the “Belt and Road” were very popular this year. “For example, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other countries brought unique agricultural products and chemical products, which were surrounded by many corporate guests.”
And such “excitement” is not just for the companies to “watch”. “In the past, when we built factories abroad, we would give priority to Southeast Asia because of its high cost performance. Now we may give priority to Central Asia and South America,” said Yang Heng.
Not only Langchi Electromechanical, but also Jiangsu’s large provincial foreign trade group, SOHO Holdings, also assumed the responsibility of Jiangsu’s service platform for Central Asia and surrounding countries along the “Belt and Road” at this conference, and released cooperation needs including the procurement of Central Asian brand consumer goods, wheat feed powder, cotton lint, and new energy vehicle exports, firmly serving Jiangsu’s trade and investment needs in countries along the “Belt and Road”.
At this Nanjing special economic and trade matchmaking meeting, foreign exhibitors from France, South Korea and Germany brought wonderful promotions and displays. Lee Hyung-shin, general manager of Lepax China, said, “The company’s microneedle technology is an original DEN production technology containing drugs. The microneedle patch solidifies the cosmetic ingredients into a microneedle form, which can minimize the loss of ingredients and deliver the ingredients to the required parts. At present, the company has products such as acne-clearing patches, moisturizing patches, oil-control and firming patches, and retinol microcrystal patches, and hopes to increase cooperation with Chinese companies.”
Not only is it necessary to understand the products, but it is also necessary to predict future trends from different products. This is an indispensable wisdom for business operations.
“For foreign trade companies, it is very important to open up the pattern and ‘go global’. With the headquarters and roots in China, and branches extending to every corner of the world and localized operations, that is, hiring local employees, we can better understand the needs of local customers. At the same time, we should do a good job in domestic sales, so that we can develop in a more balanced way by walking on two legs.” Yang Heng said.
Data shows that in recent years, Nanjing’s GDP has crossed five trillion-level steps in a row, reaching 1.74 trillion yuan in 2023. Actual foreign investment was nearly 5 billion US dollars, foreign trade imports and exports exceeded 80 billion US dollars, and digital trade formats such as cross-border e-commerce led the entire province of Jiangsu.
As the relevant leaders of the Nanjing Municipal People’s Government said at the supply and demand matching meeting, “As the only city in Jiangsu Province that has superimposed the two national-level opening strategies of the free trade pilot zone and the comprehensive pilot program for expanding the opening up of the service industry, Nanjing is accelerating the construction of a two-way open hub with global cohesion.”
From simple purchases to in-depth cooperation, the “give and take” between enterprises has also driven the continuous expansion of Jiangsu’s opening-up pattern. It can be seen that the wonderful performance of Jiangsu enterprises at the CIIE not only made the world see “Jiangsu is dazzling”, but also made more overseas enterprises embrace Jiangsu and promote win-win results.
