NANNING, Sep 14th – The 18th China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) and the 18th China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (CABIS) were held successfully from 10th-13th. The world-class expo has yielded fruitful results and a huge closing ceremony was held on 13th afternoon. At the ceremony, the conference team decided on several details of the 19th CAEXPO.
During the 18th CAEXPO, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter and both Chinese and foreign leaders attended at a high level to build a closer Pakistan-China-ASEAN community with a shared future. Pakistani President Arif Alvi sent a video message of congratulations and looked forward to more achievements in trilateral cooperation. More than 300 leaders of more than 40 political parties, heads of youth organizations and government representatives from Southeast and South Asian countries attended the meeting online. About 30 senior diplomats from Southeast and South Asian countries attended the meeting. Pakistani ambassador Moin ul Haque also attended the event.
In addition, taking the opportunity of the 30th anniversary of China-ASEAN dialogue relations, a series of friendly exchange activities were held during the 18th CAEXPO. The 70th Anniversary of Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and Pakistan & Bilateral Trade/Investment Forum, themed “Jointly building the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and sharing the opportunities of China-Pakistan economic and trade cooperation in the new era”, was held as a sub-activity of the 18th CAEXPO.
The 18th CAEXPO was held both online and offline. The total exhibition area is 102,000 square meters, with 5,400 booths, and an increase of 13.4% over the previous year. 1,502 enterprises participated in the offline exhibition, including 120 enterprises from 30 BRI countries. And 1,517 companies participated in Online CAEXPO.
There were 148 economic and trade activities held during the event. By the noon of September 13th, Online CAEXPO had been exposed more than 1.14 billion times and visited more than 21.56 million times. Each trade fair facilitated 3,200 pairs of accurate matches for merchants from BRI countries.
During the 18th CAEXPO, the contract volume increased and the quality was improved. During the signing ceremony of the 18th CAEXPO, 179 international cooperation projects were signed, with a total investment of over $46 billion, increasing 13.7% compared with the 17th CAEXPO, and the total investment of signed projects set a record in history.
Through the 18th CAEXPO, the regional business flow has been further accelerated. The BRI International Industrial Cooperation Forum and the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone Promotion Meeting were held. The Pakistan Exhibition Hall was officially settled in the China-ASEAN Special Products Gathering Center.
The 19thCAEXPO will be held from September 16 to 19, 2022, and the theme country will be Malaysia.
