China's Guangzhou improves services for 137th Canton Fair

Guangdong Province in southern China has upgraded its customs, financial, and transportation services to support international businesses at the 137th edition of the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair.

The event is scheduled to take place from April 15 to May 5 in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, with the participation of some 31,000 domestic and foreign firms, said the China Foreign Trade Center.

The Guangzhou Customs has rolled out a number of measures to ensure a smooth and efficient customs clearance for personnel and exhibits at the Canton Fair.

"From service guarantees, policy support, and technological empowerment, a total of 12 specific measures have been proposed for the exhibition business. These include establishing a unified online platform, facilitating customs clearance for personnel and exhibits, offering one-stop customs procedures at the exhibition site, supporting enterprises in participating in exhibitions, and implementing tax incentives for imported exhibits. These measures aim to ensure smooth and efficient customs clearance for personnel and exhibits at the Canton Fair," said Zeng Qi, deputy director of the Port Supervision Department of Guangzhou Customs.

In addition, this year's Canton Fair enhances cooperation with financial institutions, offering exhibitors exclusive international settlement products, financing solutions, and "one-stop" financial services.

It also improves payment convenience for overseas buyers with 20 ATMs and currency exchange machines for foreign currencies, while all merchants accept various payment methods, including foreign currency cards, digital RMB, mobile payments, and cash.

During this year's Canton Fair, Guangzhou will further enhance its public transport capacity and increased the frequency of buses and subways around the venue.

Established in 1957, the Canton Fair is held twice a year in Guangzhou. It is the longest-running of several comprehensive international trade events in China, and has been hailed as the barometer of China's foreign trade.

China's Guangzhou improves services for 137th Canton Fair

China aims to achieve secure and reliable supply of key core artificial intelligence (AI) technologies by 2027, with its industrial scale and empowerment level remaining among the world's forefront, according to a recent government action plan.

The plan, jointly issued by eight departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Cyberspace Administration of China, and the National Development and Reform Commission, outlines an ambitious push to deeply integrate AI with the manufacturing sector, foster new quality productive forces and comprehensively empower new industrialization. By 2027, the plan targets the deep application of three to five general-purpose large AI models in manufacturing, the development of specialized, full-coverage industry-specific large models, the creation of 100 high-quality industrial datasets, and the promotion of 500 typical application scenarios.

It also aims to cultivate two to three globally influential ecosystem-leading enterprises, a batch of specialized and sophisticated small and medium-sized enterprises, and a group of enabling service providers proficient in both AI technology and industry know-how.

Furthermore, China plans to build a world-leading open-source ecosystem, enhance security governance capabilities, and contribute Chinese solutions to global AI development.

The document outlines measures including promoting the coordinated development of AI chips' hardware and software, supporting innovations in model training and inference methods, fostering key industry-specific large models, and deeply embedding large model technology into core production processes.

The plan also emphasizes making breakthroughs in key technologies such as security protection for industrial model algorithms and training data protection.

China aims for secure, reliable supply of AI core tech by 2027