The latest high-quality products of 175 Zhuhai enterprises are being marketed at 582 online booths as the June 15-24 China Import & Export Fair (Canton Fair) has moved to the cloud in tandem with epidemic containment measures.

Production-oriented foreign trade enterprises numbering 108 comprise 62 percent of the trade delegation, and 67 of them (38.3 percent) are circulation-oriented concerns. Sixteen branded companies occupy 104 booths.

In total, they have uploaded pictures, videos, or 3D presentations of 13,599 products covering 16 commodity categories and 50 exhibition areas to the "Internet + Cloud Exhibition Platform." Three-quarters of the Zhuhai exhibits consist of electromechanical and hi-tech products. 

This year, the 127th Canton Fair provides exhibitors round-the-clock one-stop online exhibition, promotion, business matchmaking, and negotiation. Each can use 24-hour live broadcast rooms for cross-regional interactive communication with global purchasers.

An employee of China Electronics Zhuhai Co livestreams product promotion. [Photo by Zhong Fan / Zhuhai Daily]

As of Sunday, 106 Zhuhai enterprises had scheduled almost 1,000 livestreams. Gree Electric Appliances even assembled a team of broadcasters versed in products, trade, and foreign languages, as well as assistants and technical support.

In addition, a city government task force helped them prepare for the fair in terms of organization, investigation, publicity, online security, logistics service, intellectual property protection, and turnover statistics.

The Canton Fair is the oldest and largest trade showpiece in China. It has been held biannually every spring and autumn in Guangzhou since 1957, and is used as a barometer of China's foreign trade.

The 10-day fair is expected to boost Zhuhai's foreign trade in which, during the COVID-19 outbreak, value dropped 17 percent year-on-year to 96.43 billion yuan ($13.59 billion) in the first five months of this year. Specifically, export value decreased by 9.1 percent to 55.51 billion yuan ($7.82 billion) and import value plummeted 25.8 percent to 40.92 billion yuan ($5.77 billion).