"Veterans" and "Newcomers" at the Canton Fair

Many merchants watched at the booth of Hubei Sanhuan Forging Equipment Import and Export Co., Ltd.

A lilac Canton Fair exhibitor card is enough to make people identify whether you are a "veteran" or a "newcomer" - in the lower left corner of the document, the category of the document is marked in black font. Such as "130 system", that is, the 130th Canton Fair exhibitors. Since the Canton Fair exhibitor card supports reuse, a exhibitor card with a sense of age is a proof of strength and identity.

After three sessions of the "Online Canton Fair", the 130th Canton Fair resumed offline exhibition, becoming the largest offline exhibition in the world to recover under the influence of the epidemic, attracting many "veterans" and "newcomers" to meet in Sui. What are their new feelings and expectations? Hubei Daily reporters made a visit.

There is no substitute for the Window role

Yin Jinshan, who wears suits and leather shoes and gold-rimmed glasses, is one of the best "old Cantonese" exhibitors in Hubei. In 1982, Yin Jinshan, who was studying at a university in Guangzhou, became a volunteer at the Canton Fair.

After returning to Hubei to start a business, in 2002, Yin Jinshan participated in the Canton Fair for the first time as the general manager of Hubei Jinshan Light Industry Home Appliance Co., Ltd. For almost 20 years, his exhibitor ID photo is still a handsome black guy.

"Dating old friends, meeting new friends, the unique window role of the Canton Fair is irreplaceable." Yin Jinshan said that in the Internet era, the Canton Fair still has a strong ability to gather resources, and is an important platform for foreign trade enterprises to expand customers and maintain a "circle of friends".

According to Yin Jinshan' recollection, in the 1980s, the Canton Fair period lasted for one month, and then gradually shortened to 20 days, 12 days, a week, until the current 5 days, but the exhibition area continued to expand and more exhibits were increasing. "The time is shorter and the signing efficiency is higher, which is in line with the development trend of digital trade."

Hubei Sanhuan Forging Equipment Import and Export Co., Ltd. is also a "veteran" of the Canton Fair and has participated in the 22nd Canton Fair consecutively. In the view of Mo Dan, general manager of Sanhuan Forging, the Canton Fair is not only an arena, but also an excellent platform to show the corporate brand image-

From 2010 to 2021, Sanhuan Forging changed from a small booth of 3 square meters to a brand booth of 36 square meters, and the annual export volume increased from more than 2 million US dollars to more than 20 million US dollars, and CNC bending machines, CNC shearing machines and other products were spread throughout more than 60 countries such as the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and so on.

The reporter saw at the booth site that the newly developed intelligent bending center control system of the three-ring forging attracted everyone to watch, and the operator only needed to enter the relevant data, put in the stainless steel plate, the equipment could be processed independently, and more than 20 processes were completed within 20 seconds, and the metal parts such as auto parts, file cabinets, electrical cabinets, kitchenware and other metal parts with different shapes were processed.

"In addition to Italy and Germany, the same type of intelligent bending equipment is only mastered by the three rings." Mo Dan said that in order to let overseas buyers understand the new products, the three-ring forging press uploaded the product name, parameters and other information to the "Canton Fair on the Cloud" in advance to achieve online and offline integration and promotion.

As an "old Cantonese", Mo Dan frankly said that due to the impact of the epidemic abroad, there were fewer overseas buyers at the Canton Fair, and they were crowded before. However, in the context of "promoting domestic and international double circulation", a large number of domestic buyers landed on the Canton Fair stage, opening up a channel for foreign trade enterprises to "export to domestic sales".

In two days, the new product with a unit price of more than 800,000 yuan has received two intentional orders - one from Ningbo and one from Yemen.

Help "newcomers" to find out the "taste" of customers

In the "Rural Revitalization" exhibition area of the Canton Fair, there are many Hubei enterprises participating in the exhibition for the first time, and Hubei Youhua Tea Technology Co., Ltd. is one of them.

As a leading agricultural industrialization enterprise in Hubei Province, Youhua Tea has an export record tea base of 1,740 mu, an order base of more than 15,000 mu, a standardized export tea production workshop of 3,000 square meters, and an annual export volume of about 5 million yuan.

In order to polish the export tea brand of Zhushan County, Yang Song, general manager of Youhua Tea, not only brought more than ten innovative tea products such as floral green tea, floral black tea, hanmei fragrant tea, lanxiang tea, etc., but also carried a variety of R&D patents with him to show to interested buyers at any time.

Yang Song said that the company has also participated in many agricultural fairs and tea fairs before, and feels that the buyers and sellers of the Canton Fair are more purposeful, and most of the buyers who take the initiative to ask for business cards and add WeChat are customers who place orders.

"In the context of the Internet, many products can find information on the Internet, and the greater significance of the Canton Fair is to help 'newcomers' find out the 'tastes' of overseas customers, and then improve products and services." Yang Song said.

Some foreign companies have also joined the "newcomer" camp. In the canton fair import exhibition area, Japan's Xizhe Co., Ltd. launched an electric fan called "rice field fan", which can be rotated 360 degrees with a shaking head, the wind distance can reach 8 meters, and the bedroom of 20 square meters can be completed in only 3 minutes.

According to the sales manager of Xizhe's booth, as early as 2013, Xizhe set up a factory in China, but at that time, it was mainly processed products exported to Japan. After the products were sold domestically in the Chinese market in 2017, the sales of fan products increased by 4 times in 3 years in 2020. "I hope to use the Canton Fair platform to let Chinese consumers know Xizhe and expand the Chinese sales market."

From exporting goods to exporting services

On both sides of the walkway between the Canton Fair pavilions, the booths of overseas warehouses and shipping logistics companies that entered the Canton Fair for the first time were refreshing.

In front of the booth of COSCO SHIPPING, there were many business consultants such as overseas warehouses, electronic tax declarations, iron and water intermodal transportation, credit insurance, and financing.

The high price of sea freight has also made more and more enterprises realize the importance of overseas warehouses. According to the Ministry of Commerce, as of September this year, the number of Overseas Warehouses in China has exceeded 1,900, with a total area of more than 13.5 million square meters.

Yuan Yong, head of South China COSCO SHIPPING Container Transport Co., Ltd., said that at present, the company has invested nearly all its capacity in the maritime market and signed long-term agreements with leading enterprises such as Midea and TCL. With the help of the Canton Fair platform, the company has established a communication platform with the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises to smooth the product export supply chain.

According to the staff of Shenzhen Yihaitong Global Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd., in the traditional overseas sales season such as Christmas, if foreign trade enterprises have overseas warehouses, they can prepare goods in advance, organize packaging and distribution according to local orders, and avoid uncertain factors such as stranded goods at the port and soaring freight to increase operational risks.

Wang Xianqing, president of the Guangdong Provincial Business Economics Association, believes that the role of the future Canton Fair is no longer a simple product display, but a service technical cooperation and design experience, and export goods can also export services and export design.

(Text/Figure Hubei Daily all-media reporter Liu Tianzhong, Zuo Chen, Peng Yibo)