By Dipo Olowookere
The 22nd Yiwu Fair, scheduled to take place on October 21-25, 2016 in Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province, China, will present three ‘Made-in-Zhejiang’-themed exhibition zones, namely ‘Quality Products of Zhejiang’, ‘Smart Products of Zhejiang’ and ‘Famous Products of Zhejiang’, to showcase premium SME brands of Zhejiang Province and discuss the new landscape for Zhejiang export-import traders.
With the new wave of technical and industrial evolution and the economic upgrade, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed “Three Transformations” and “Supply-Side Reform”, while Premier Li Keqiang mentioned “Era of Quality” and “Made-in-China 2025” on various occasions, which raised new requirements of upgrade and development for China’s real economy, in particular manufacturing, the backbone of China’s national economy.
In 2014, the Zhejiang Provincial Government launched the strategy of “Building Made-in-Zhejiang Brands” and pioneered the “Made-in-Zhejiang” brand building system focusing on “regional brands, advanced standards, market certification, international awareness”, in order to energize the supply side of the manufacturing industry, accelerate the transformation of its growth mode from factor-driven to innovation-driven, and enhance the province’s supply capability of high-quality and high-end products.
In recent years, Yiwu City proposed “strengthening momentum with quality” in addition to “gaining momentum with quality”, with its focus shifting from speed, product and manufacturing to quality, brand and innovation, respectively.
In a bid to enhance Yiwu’s manufacturing capability, accelerate the development of brands, quality and standards, and create flagship products and companies for “Made-in-Zhejiang”, the Yiwu Municipal Government proposed a Yiwu Pilot Zone for “Made-in-Zhejiang”, actively guided Yiwu companies to meet “Made-in-Zhejiang” standards and facilitated the win-win cooperation between “Made-in-Zhejiang” and the Yiwu market.
The 22nd Yiwu Fair, covering 14 Industries and containing 7 Thematic Zones, will gather 2,500 enterprise exhibitors coming from 30 countries and regions, and more than 210,000 business visitors from 200 countries and regions.
It is one of the largest, most influential and most effective commodities fairs in Asia.
Yiwu Fair is committed to building a first-choice import and export trade exhibition platform for SMEs in the Yangtze River Delta.