The 135th China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair) concluded Sunday in Guangzhou, capital city of south China's Guangdong Province, drawing an unprecedented 246,000 internationa buyers, up 24.5 percent from the previous edition.
According to official data, the record-breaking number of overseas buyers hailed from 215 countries and regions, showcasing the fair's global reach and influence.
The event featured a wide array of high-end, intelligent, green, and low-carbon products, including intelligent bionic hands, and automated navigation transport equipment. Over 5,500 national high-tech enterprises, manufacturing champions, and national-level "little giant" enterprises participated in the fair, a 20 percent increase from the previous edition, showcasing China's commitment to innovation and technological advancement.
"We are seeing little by little, more and more companies innovating with this technology (AI) to bring forward the whole industry in terms of sustainability, performance and also versatility," said Jorge Barros, a Chile buyer.
Export transactions at the fair also saw a significant increase, with offline export deals totaling 24.7 billion U.S. dollars as of Saturday, representing a 10.7 percent growth compared to the previous edition. This positive trend reflects the resilience and recovery of China's foreign trade sector.
"This Canton Fair saw a strong attendance with many innovations offering good experience and results. It shows that Chinese enterprises have strong innovation momentum, foreign trade development is vigorous, and economic development maintains a good momentum. It also shows that the international market needs China, and the global business community is optimistic about China," said Chu Shijia, director of the China Foreign Trade Center.
The fair also witnessed the launch of over 1 million new products and hosted 334 events featuring new product launches, premieres, and showcases.
The online attendance of overseas buyers at this edition of the Canton Fair reached 408,000 people, representing 229 countries and regions worldwide.
The next Canton Fair will be held in Guangzhou from October 15 to November 4 this year.
Launched in 1957 and held twice yearly, the fair is considered a major gauge of China's foreign trade.
Canton Fair concludes with record 246,000 overseas buyers in attendance
Chinese scientists have recently worked together and rebuilt the face of an ancient Chinese ethnic minority emperor via cutting-edge DNA technology.
Emperor Wu of the Xianbei-led Northern Zhou Dynasty (557-581), also known as Yuwen Yong, was an ambitious leader who died at 36. He belonged to the Xianbei nomadic group, which originated from the Mongolian Plateau.
The tomb of the emperor was discovered in 1993 in a village of the city of Xianyang in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. His skull and bones were discovered during an excavation held in 1994 and 1995 at the site of his tomb.
In late March this year, scientists led by the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology and the Institute of Archaeological Science of Fudan University managed to decode key features of the emperor and speculate about his cause of death. The emperor might have died from chronic arsenic poisoning due to long-term use of a pellet, which was believed by ancient people to achieve eternal life.
"First, the skeleton can be used to determine age. Second, in terms of age and gender, some pathological research can also be done to see if he had any fractures or other (diseases)," said Zhang Jianlin, a researcher from the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology.
Obtaining high-quality genomic data is crucial for restoring the face. Through DNA paleogenomics techniques and optimized DNA extraction, database building and capture methods, more history was revealed.
"First, we have done the shorter fragments enrichment method, which is a DNA extraction method. In addition, we have developed some more sensitive database building method suitable for ancient samples with short fragments. You can regard it as a method to amplify the genetic signal, the extracted DNA. The third is that we have developed a capture method that is more suitable for this kind of highly degraded ancient samples. So we have optimized and improved our approach from three aspects at the same time," said Wen Shaoqing, an associate professor of the Institute of Archaeological Science of Fudan University.
The reconstructed face showed that Yuwen Yong had black hair, yellow skin and brown eyes, while his appearance was typical for people from East or Northeast Asia.
Wen said that with the help of the DNA technology, the accuracy of facial restoration can reach 90 percent.
"As for the accuracy of (facial restoration), the current situation is that if there is a skull as a basis, its accuracy will be relatively high," said Wen.
Scientists rebuild face of ancient emperor using advanced DNA technology
