The WTCA at 2023 CIIE in Shanghai
The WTCA successfully wrapped up its exhibition at the 6th annual China International Import Expo (CIIE), held November 5-10 in Shanghai. For the fourth consecutive year, the WTCA CIIE program offered a hybrid approach to CIIE, the top trade show for imported goods in China, for global WTCA Members and their business networks to showcase their products and services to CIIE event attendees. A total 289 Global Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders participated at this year’s CIIE event, with over 3,400 exhibitors and 394,000 professional visitors, marking a full recovery to pre-pandemic attendee levels.
The 2023 WTCA CIIE program participants included 35 enterprises from 7 overseas World Trade Center (WTC) businesses, bringing a total of 130 products and services from 7 countries covering 5 major industries including Food and Agriculture, Consumer Goods, Trade Services, Healthcare, and Intelligent Industry and Information Technology. The participating WTC businesses represented the European, African, Latin American, and Asia Pacific regions. The hybrid WTCA CIIE program format provided free remote participation for convenient and cost-effective access to the Chinese market for overseas WTCA Members and their business networks, as well as an in-person booth managed by WTCA Asia Pacific Regional Office (APRO) staff to allow for face-to-face interaction with potential buyers.Â
Throughout the exhibition, the WTCA booth was visited by delegations from WTC Chongqing, WTC Haikou, WTC Nanning, WTC Shanghai and WTC Shenyang, as well as officials and representatives from many organizations and companies such as the People's Government of Shaanxi Province, Beijin​g Municipal Commerce Bureau and Hainan Enterprise Federation. WTC Shenyang worked closely with WTC Dublin to bring many products from the Dublin business community for display at the WTCA booth including Irish whiskey, beer, sauces, snacks and skincare products. Additionally, the WTC Haikou team co-hosted the Hainan Free Trade Port Investment and Asset Joint Promotion Conference during CIIE, where they shared information about the policies related to the free trade port, promoted high-quality asset projects, and officially announced the establishment of the Free Trade Port Asset Service Alliance. As a continuation of this year’s WTCA CIIE program, WTC Haikou will take the participating WTCA CIIE program products to next year’s China International Consumer Products Expo (CICPE) in China’s Hainan province in April 2024.Â
The 2023 WTCA CIIE Program was a joint program between the WTCA and WTC Shanghai, and was promoted to local business communities by 11 WTC businesses/partners in China.
“We were very excited to bring many overseas products and services to CIIE again this year as part of our continued commitment and effort to facilitate global trade and economic recovery in the post-pandemic era. It has been a major focus of our services to create critical market access for SMEs, which represent the vast majority of the business communities that our global WTCA network is serving. We will continue the momentum and collaborate closely with our Members to deliver more opportunities and access for our SMEs within the China market,” said Scott Wang, WTCA Vice President, Asia Pacific.
