(Published on Cape Times, 25 April)

China's time-honored biannual trade fair, The China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair), kicked off its 131st session online on April 15. The session, themed “Connecting Domestic and International Dual Circulations,” runs 10 days until April 24. Co-hosted by the Ministry of Commerce of PRC and the People's Government of Guangdong Province and organized by China Foreign Trade Centre, it is an all-inclusive international trading event with the longest history, the largest scale, the most complete exhibit variety, the largest buyer's attendance, the broadest distribution of source countries of buyers and the biggest business turnover in China. Since its establishment in the spring of 1957, Canton Fair has become China's foremost trade event. Now, it is not just a trade show and platform, but also plays an invaluable role in promoting the robust and well-ordered advancement of China’s foreign trade economy and supporting the security of international industrial and supply chains.

Amid Coronavirus flare-ups around the world, the event goes solely online – a new form of trade exchange first introduced in the 127th session in 2020, which lowers costs for participants, breaks time and space limits and greatly facilitates exchange and communication. The latest session includes online exhibitions, market match-making and cross-border e-commerce, and has attracted about 25,500 domestic and overseas exhibitors. In a total of eight shows and 50 virtual exhibition halls, attending companies have uploaded over 2.9 million items, including 900,000 new products and more than 480,000 green and low-carbon exhibits, breaking all-time records. South African purchasers and exhibitors can be freed from the hustle of travelling abroad while buying, inspecting, and selling commodities globally on the all-encompassing website of the fair. The website has lately introduced several interactive features, including the buyer information authorization functionality, with which authorized exhibitors can browse buyers' information, send business cards, and start chats and negotiations instantly.

As China's premier trading event and a significant barometer of China's foreign trade, Canton Fair has withstood various challenges and never been interrupted in the past 65 years. It echoes the nation's policies and strategies and makes great contribution to China's reform and opening up, sustainable development, and mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries around the world.

The CPC Central Committee with President Xi Jinping at its core has highlighted that while the whole world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century, taking into consideration the turbulent global political and economic conditions, "China's economy has shifted from the stage of high-speed growth to the stage of high-quality development". In the new development stage, the new development paradigm of “dual circulation”, in which domestic and overseas markets reinforce each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay, is thus a paramount strategic deployment in response to domestic and international risks and challenges.

The strategic significance of Canton Fair in serving the building of new development paradigm and opening to the outside world at a higher level, in a wider range and in a deeper way, has become even more prominent under the current international situation.

In previous years, the proportion of African buyers at the Fair was around 5%, and now the number is poised to grow steadily. The close cooperation between China and South Africa during the Canton Fair epitomizes the amicable relations between the two countries.

Last year, the 8th Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was successfully held under the auspices of President Xi Jinping and President Cyril Ramaphosa with fruitful results. The year 2021 also saw South Africa's exports to China reach 33.23 billion US Dollars, an awe-inspiring increase of 59.6% year-on-year. Nowadays, with the rapid growth of economic and trade links between China and South Africa and the increased political willingness to further cement overall bilateral relations, more and more South African and Chinese enterprises are seeking to establish closer trade partnerships, which are spotlighted at the Canton Fair. Chinese enterprises are taking the initiative to make themselves known to the world, providing African/South African partners with well-developed e-commerce technologies and trading channels, and expanding the content and scope of trade service cooperation between the two sides. Many African/South African businesspeople have also shown a keen interest in live-streaming marketing and are eager to explore more exhilarating possibilities.

Canton Fair serves as a window through which we can see that under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with President Xi Jinping at its core, China is committed to connecting domestic and international dual circulations with great confidence in promoting high-quality development and the fierce determination to constantly move toward all-round and higher-level opening up.