Leon Meredyk, a Polish national, was fluent in Mandarin when he presented Polish dairy products at the Second China-CEEC Exhibition and International Consumer Goods Fair in Ningbo, East China’s Zhejiang Province. .

“We attach great importance to the Chinese market because it has great potential,” said Meredyk, director of business development for Vici Group, a Polish company that started exporting to China in 2013.

Under the theme “Fostering a new development paradigm, sharing a win-win opportunity”, the exhibition opened on Tuesday, attracting some 300 companies from Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) and more than 7,000 buyers.

Joint efforts to boost trade and strengthen cooperation in emerging industries between China and CEECs feature high on the agenda of the exhibition, which is expected to offer customers a variety of specialty product choices from CEECs. Chinese and offer various platforms for exchanging points of view. .

SUSTAINED DYNAMIC TRADE

Faced with a global slowdown, trade between China and the CEECs jumped 50.2% year-on-year to reach $ 30.13 billion in the first quarter of 2021, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC).

In 2020, merchandise trade between China and CEECs exceeded US $ 100 billion for the first time. In the first quarter of this year, China imported $ 8.17 billion in goods from these countries, a jump of 44.7% year-on-year.

The exhibition will help the Chinese market to learn more about CEEC commodities, expand CEEC exports to China, and help all parties meet the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and promote the economic recovery.

In recent years, China has also seen an acceleration in trade cooperation with the CEECs. Trade between the two sides grew at an average rate of 8% between 2012 and 2020, more than double the growth of China-EU trade during the same period.

The supply and industrial chains of the two sides are complementary, which opens up a positive outlook, said Ren Hongbin, deputy minister of commerce.

China has become Hungary’s most important trading partner outside the European Union (EU), said Laszlo Balogh, deputy state secretary in the country’s finance ministry. In 2020, bilateral trade between the two countries increased 22% year on year to reach $ 11 billion.

The exhibition, which is scheduled to close on June 11, will become another commercial propeller between China and the CEECs. Showcasing products such as helicopters, light planes, yachts, as well as agricultural products, high-end kitchen appliances and skin care brands from CEECs, it will provide a platform to promote more business. balanced.

China will take multiple steps, including easing customs clearance, as part of efforts to deliver on pledge to import goods worth 170 billion dollars from CEECs over the next five years, said Wang Bingnan. , Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce.

MORE SYNERGY IN NEW AREAS

In addition to optimizing trade cooperation with CEECs, China is proactively expanding cooperation into new areas, including digital, health and green sectors, which will also contribute to the global economic recovery, according to officials of the MOC.

During the exhibition, a China-CEEC e-commerce cooperation and dialogue mechanism was launched as a sign that the two sides will share joint achievements in cultivating talent and building logistics infrastructure. , and introduce more CEEC products to the Chinese market through trading platforms.

A China-CEEC alliance in the public health sector has also been established in the meantime.

“Most of the people here in this country are vaccinated, with the Sinopharm vaccine from China … the Chinese vaccines. I think there isn’t such a country in Europe that you can find that level of confidence ( towards Chinese vaccines) which you can see here in Belgrade and Serbia, ”Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in an interview with Xinhua earlier this year.

Hungary, the first EU member state to purchase and license Chinese vaccines, expects continued technical cooperation with China. Peter Szijjarto, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said he was grateful for the rapid and advanced delivery of vaccines, which helped protect the lives of the Hungarian people.

On June 2, China and 15 CEECs jointly announced the strengthening of forestry cooperation to further stimulate forest bioeconomic growth. Guan Zhi’ou, head of China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration, said it was an inevitable choice to achieve sustainable development.

“We must take full advantage of the exhibition to conduct in-depth exchanges and achieve more win-win results to give new impetus to practical cooperation between China and CEECs,” said Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce. Wang Bingnan.