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Liu Cigui's Speech at the Hong Kong Promotional Seminar for the 12th CIFIT
——By Liu Cigui, Vice Director of CIFIT Organizing Committee and Mayor of Xiamen |
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2008-6-20 16:15:00 |
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Distinguished Guests, Friends from the Media, Ladies and Gentlemen:
These days our entire nation is at a critical moment in our earthquake relief efforts and in a vital stage of preparations for the forthcoming Beijing Olympic Games. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of our nation’s reform and opening-up initiative. Thus, this is a very special moment for me to be here in Hong Kong to promote the China International Fair for Investment and Trade. Here, on behalf of the organizer and host of CIFIT, Xiamen Municipal People’s Government, I’d like to extend my warmest welcome to all of your and express my most sincere appreciation for your support!
We owe the success of each session of CIFIT to the consistent backing of our friends in domestic and overseas business communities, especially Hong Kong business community. Over the past 11 years, CIFIT has been enjoying a steadily expanding influence and producing constantly improving results, and its role in promoting international investment has become increasingly apparent. CIFIT is well on the way to becoming a major international investment exposition. I’d like to take advantage of this opportunity to give an update on the preparations for the upcoming CIFIT. Overall, we’ve made headway in the following six areas.
First, the scale of exhibition has been expanding steadily.
Over the past 11 years, the number of booths at CIFIT has largely been maintained at about 1,500. With the completion of the second phase of Xiamen International Conference and Exhibition Center and International Conference Center, this year’s CIFIT plans to provide 2,500 international standard booths, totaling more than 60,000 square meters. This will be a milestone event for CIFIT as the scale and name recognition of CIFIT will continue to expand.
Second, this year’s CIFIT will have a sharper international focus.
To date, 41 countries and regions, including the United States, Turkey, Australia, Belgium, France, Belgium, Spain, Thailand, Romania, Hong Kong and Macao, have signed up for the year’s CIFIT, and more than 70 countries and regions are expected to attend the fair. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA), Pacific island nations, China-Portugal Forum and many other international economic organizations will be represented at the fair as well. Moreover, government officials and principals of business groups, chambers of commerce, trade associations and multinational companies from many countries and regions are also expected to attend the fair.
This year’s CIFIT will host various events aimed at promoting international economic and trade cooperation and exchanges, including the China-Portuguese Speaking Countries Trade Ministers Dialog, China-Pacific Island Nations Economic Development Cooperation Forum, ministerial-level conferences on investment, trade and tourism, and many other major international bilateral and multilateral economic and trade exchange events.
An increasing number of countries and regions are capitalizing on the platform of CIFIT to promote their respective investment environments, policies and business opportunities. The United States, Mexico, France, Britain, Romania and many other countries have plans to host investment environment promotion seminars at the upcoming fair. Many countries and multinational companies will organize “thematic pavilion day” events at the fair as well. So far, the United States, Australia, Turkey and Macao have expressed interest in hosting pavilion day events. Brazil, Russia, India, France and Spain are intended to take advantage of the huge inflows of visitors, logistics and cash at CIFIT to promote investment.
Third, a larger amount of authoritative information will be released.
CIFIT, as an authoritative global forum on investment policies, theoretic research and information release, is becoming increasing mature. The annual “International Investment Forum” and dozens of seminars on hot investment topics draw intense attention from the global business community and are major venues for sharing international investment experiences and exploring investment promotion approaches, dubbed the “barometer” of international investment.
This year, the Ministry of Commerce will continue to organize the “International Investment Forum” and “Multinational Companies Conference”. In addition, the Ministry of Commerce will present 26 other forums and seminars on hot investment topics centered on “attracting FDI” and “going global”; such topics will include modern service industry, entrepreneurial investment, investment and financing risk management, protection of intellectual property rights, corporate social responsibility, anti-dumping and trade barriers. The Organizing Committee will team up with related organizations to present the China Investment Promotion Seminar for Overseas Chinese Businesspeople, the Forum on Cooperation with China’s International Sister Cities, the International Roundtable of Goodwill Chambers of Commerce, the 2008 ASOCIO Software Parks Summit Forum, the Capital Forum, the Asia Investment Fund Summit, the China Property Rights Transaction Summit Forum, the Macao-China Fortune Forum, and the Turkey Forum.
With capital accumulation over the past 30 years of reform and opening-up, Chinese enterprises have progressively acquired funding and capacity to invest in the overseas market, emerging as a new force in outward investment. As a vital platform for promoting bilateral investment, CIFIT is the best channel for establishing contact with Chinese enterprises and attracting their outward investment. CIFIT is an ideal place to identify potential investment partners.
Fourth, the integration and interaction of investment and trade will intensify.
In order to facilitate the execution of China’s strategy of maintaining a two-way balance in foreign trade and under our operating philosophy of “enabling investment to stimulate trade and trade to promote investment”, this year’s fair will vigorously push for the integration and interaction of investment and trade. To this end, a trade hall is being planned, exhibition areas for African and Taiwanese commodities will be set up for the first time, and exhibition areas for the equipment manufacturing industry and environmental protection will be added. The exhibition will continue to be themed around investment and showcase not only investment environments and projects in various countries and regions, but also commodities stimulating or serving investment projects, commodities classified as capital goods, and equipment; all these are aimed to stimulating investment through trade.
Fifth, project matchmaking will be more result-focused.
Project matchmaking, an innovation of CIFIT, is dedicated to assisting business owners to locate capital and investors to identify investment opportunities. This year, we’ve comprehensively sorted out and upgraded our project database; this database now contains more than 42,000 projects at home and abroad, dubbed “a project supermarket”. The upcoming fair will increase the number and scale of project matchmaking symposia. In addition to general matchmaking, we plan to organize 11 dedicated matchmaking events for property rights transaction, listed companies, investment funds, transportation, service outsourcing, patented technologies, and brand franchising. Mor |
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