Chinese trade officials promote Canton Fair 2013 to Cambodian businessmen

PHNOM PENH, July 4 (Xinhua) -- A group of Chinese trade officials on Thursday promoted the 114th China Import and Export Fair, renowned as the "Canton Fair", to some 120 Cambodian business executives.

Speaking at the event in Phnom Penh, Ma Chunzhi, vice-president of China Foreign Trade Center, said that the 114th China Import and Export Fair would be held from Oct. 15 to Nov. 4 this year at the China Import and Export Fair Complex in Guangzhou City in southern China.

The Canton Fair, established in 1957, is held every spring and autumn in Guangzhou.

Ma said that during the spring fair in April-May this year, some 24,000 Chinese and foreign enterprises exhibited over 150,000 categories of quality products, attracting 202,760 buyers from 211 countries and regions. "The Canton Fair plays a key role in advancing the development of China's foreign trade and the economic and trade exchanges between China and the rest of the world,"Ma said.

He added that the upcoming fair would be a good chance for Cambodian business people to have their companies'products exposed to the world and to seek foreign partners to expand their businesses. "The event will help further boost the trade ties between China and Cambodia,"he said.

Kan Channmeta, under-secretary of state at Cambodian Ministry of Commerce, said the Canton Fair ranked the top in the world in terms of the scale of a single exhibition and was deemed as a comprehensive trading event with the longest history.

He urged Cambodian companies to join the forthcoming fair in order to help expand trade and investment relations between Cambodia and China.

Meanwhile, he lauded Chinese investors for doing businesses in Cambodia and called on more investors to come to Cambodia in order to deepen Cambodia-China economic cooperation in the framework of ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement.

Li Zhigong, political counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia, agreed that the upcoming fair would be another opportunity for China and Cambodia to expand trade and investment relations.

He said China-Cambodia trade volume last year was valued at 2.9 billion U.S. dollars, up 17 percent year-on-year, and in the first four months of this year, the bilateral trade was worth about 1.08 billion U.S. dollars, up 42 percent.

On the investment aspect, China is the largest investor in Cambodia, he said.

According to the figures of the Council for Development of Cambodia, from 1994 to 2012, total Chinese investment in Cambodia reached 9.17 billion U.S. dollars.