One-stop service at Canton Fair facilitates foreign trade

The ongoing 135th session of the China Import and Export Fair, or the Canton Fair, has introduced 209 enterprises provide online or on-site one-stop services to facilitate trading for exhibitors.

As the country's oldest and most comprehensive trade fair, the Canton Fair is known as China's "barometer" for foreign trade. The current session, scheduled for April 15 to May 5 in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong in south China, draws over 29,000 exhibitors from around the world with a total of 74,000 exhibition booths.

As of Wednesday, more than 100,000 overseas buyers from 212 countries and regions attended the 135th Canton Fair, an increase of 23 percent over the previous spring session of the fair.

Trade services provided by the fair covers every procedure following an intention reached between an exhibitor and a buyer, from logistics and warehousing, finance and insurance, cross-border e-commerce, testing and certification, business consulting, to comprehensive services.

Services are available within the exhibition areas as windows of the more than 200 service enterprises flank the main passageway of the exhibition venue.

Most of these service enterprises are logistics and warehousing providers. They offer options of container vessels, China-Europe Railway Express, and China-Central Asia freight trains for transportation, either by unimodal or sea-land-air multimodal. A complete set of solutions is there for any kinds of goods, from small goods such as food, clothing, cosmetics, to large ones as machines, automobiles or aircrafts.

The twice-a-year Canton Fair has improved its trade supporting services over the past decades since it was launched in 1957, and has become more considerate for the participants.

For instance, the current session has added to the basic multilingual service brochures manuals on China's tax rebate policies related to different industries such as automobiles and cross-border e-commerce. There are even guides on investment and tax policies for 104 countries and regions.

Export enterprises participating in the Canton Fair could get tax refund in five working days on average, and some enterprises can even complete drawback process in three working days.

Guangzhou Customs also sent a team of public attorneys to the 135th Canton Fair for the first time to provide consultation on laws and regulations and preferential policies in the field of import and export.

One-stop service at Canton Fair facilitates foreign trade

The Urumqi Grand Bazaar in the capital city of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is offering visitors an immersive experience of the splendid folk customs and food cultures of local ethnic groups, as well as a chance to join a large riding parade on a rare ferghana horse, on the occasion of the five-day May Day holiday season starting on Wednesday.

The bazaar, meaning "market" in the Uygur language, is a must-go place for hundreds of millions of tourists in Xinjiang, showcasing the Islamic architecture and culture and bringing together all kinds of folk performances, special delicacies and tourist souvenirs from across the region.

This city landmark of Urumqi has finished the upgrading and renovation of some of its pavilions and floats and added a lot of interactive experience projects for the May Day holiday.

The bazaar provides visitors with an opportunity to personally participate in a Uygur wedding. The performers, dressed in traditional costumes of the Uygur people, demonstrate their wedding process and show the ethnic group's musical talent with vibrant songs and dances.

Xinjiang has long been a multi-ethnic region since ancient times where the cultures of different ethnic groups have met and blended with one another. Therefore, the bazaar exhibits the wedding ceremonies of the Kazakh people, Tajik people and other ethnic groups as well.

In additional to the display of rich folk custom and fascinating cultural mix, the bazaar also boasts a collection of assorted cuisines of Xinjiang. From grilled meat such as roasted whole lamb, to staple food such as pilaf, and to dessert such as glutinous rice dumplings with yogurt, foodies can always find their favorite delicacy there.

Urumqi also launched a horse-themed tourism season, featuring large-scale riding parades, carriage tours, equestrian and dressed-up horse shows, traditional horseback sport competitions, rare horse breeds exhibitions, and other activities.

At the Grand Bazaar, visitors have the chance to appreciate the precious ferghana horses closely and even ride them to enjoy a leisure city tour on horseback.

For the five-day May Day holiday, Urumqi is well-prepared to welcome tourists with more than 260 themed events and artistic performances.

Xinjiang's grand bazaar immerses holidaymakers in ethnic folk cultures