International Commodities Exposition to Be Held in East China

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 ◆ International Commodities Exposition to Be Held in East China

The China Yiwu International Commodities Exposition 2002 is scheduled to be held from October 22 to 26 in Yiwu, a city in east China's Zhejiang Province.

The exposition is to be jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC), Zhejiang Provincial Government, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, the China National Light Industry Council and the China General Chamber of Commerce.

Vice Governor Wang Yongming of Zhejiang Province said at a press conference Tuesday that as Zhejiang has a booming economy and fast-growing foreign trade, it has developed rapidly in various commodities markets.

Yiwu, a city fostering a market economy, has held annual China commodities expositions for seven years, Wang said, adding that the exposition 2002 will have international features in keeping with China's membership of the World Trade Organization.

Gao Hucheng, assistant minister of the MOFTEC, said Yiwu, known as a business city, is home to a large number and the variety of its goods.

China's small and medium-sized enterprises should make full use of the exposition to transform the advantages they have into competitive advantages, he said.

Statistics show that 1,026 enterprises from 26 countries and regions including China's mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as the United States, the Republic of Korea, Japan and Australia attended the Yiwu exposition in 2001, with trade bringing 4.37 billion yuan (about 527 million U.S. dollars).

The main exhibition hall this year will cover 47,000 square meters, providing 1,500 booths of international standard, according to the organizing committee.