Canton Fair contributes to promoting Belt and Road cooperation

With many exhibitors getting large orders and purchasers getting new products and new information, the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, is becoming an important platform for deepening cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

The Canton Fair's global partnership program has covered organizations from 105 countries and regions, and more than 140, or over 70 percent of the organizations, are from Belt and Road partner countries.

At the ongoing 137th edition of the Canton Fair, China's Wuhu MBO Import and Export Co., Ltd. is exhibiting its latest models of air conditioners that are able to make rooms warm amid a temperature of minus 35 degrees Celsius and keep the air cool amid 60 degrees Celsius, drawing many purchasers. The Canton Fair has helped the company expand its markets in China's Belt and Road partner countries in recent years.

"We estimate that we can sell 400,000 to 500,000 air conditioners at this edition of the Canton Fair. The number is actually much larger than we expected,"said Zhang Fan, general manager of Wuhu MBO Import and Export Co., Ltd.

"This air-conditioner brand is developing very fast in Uzbekistan. The number of our purchasing orders to this company increased from 10,000 sets to 60,000 sets in two years," said a purchaser from Uzbekistan.

Old and new comers from China's Belt and Road partner countries said the Canton Fair has been bringing new business opportunities for them.

"We are looking also for AI products. Now we can see this market is going to this direction, it's very hot. So we are studying also this market to introduce it later in Brazil," said a Brazilian purchaser.

"We give orders also, and we will give more (orders) also," said a Pakistani purchaser.

The 137th edition of the Canton Fair kicked off on Tuesday, with the number of export exhibitors exceeding 30,000 for the first time in the history of this famous event.

Scheduled to take place from April 15 to May 5 in the southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou, the current edition of the fair has brought together about 31,000 participating firms, up by nearly 900 compared with the previous fair.

More than 200,000 overseas buyers from 215 countries and regions have preregistered, with the lineup featuring the likes of retail giants Walmart and Target from the United States, Carrefour from France, Tesco and Kingfisher from Britain, and Germany's Metro.

The current edition of the fair is divided into three phases. The first will focus on advanced manufacturing, the second on quality home furnishings, and the third on products that promote a better quality of life.

The event will involve 172 product zones, including, for the first time, a special zone for service robots focused on showcasing the latest achievements of China's AI development efforts.

Canton Fair contributes to promoting Belt and Road cooperation

Canton Fair contributes to promoting Belt and Road cooperation

Canton Fair contributes to promoting Belt and Road cooperation

The death toll from a landfill collapse in the central Philippine city of Cebu has risen to eight by Monday morning as search and rescue operations continued for another 28 missing people.

The landfill collapse occurred on Thursday as dozens of sanitation workers were working at the site. The disaster has already caused injuries of 18 people.

Family members of the missing people said the rescue progress is slow, and the hope for the survival of their loved ones is fading.

"For me, maybe I’ve accepted the worst result already because the garbage is poisonous and yesterday, it was raining very hard the whole day. Maybe they’ve been poisoned. For us, alive or dead, I hope we can get their bodies out of the garbage rubble," said Maria Kareen Rubin, a family member of a victim.

Families have set up camps on high ground near the landfill, awaiting news of their relatives. Some people at the site said cries for help could still be heard hours after the landfill collapsed, but these voices gradually faded away.

Bienvenido Ranido, who lost his wife in the disaster, said he can't believe all that happened.

"After they gave my wife oxygen, my kids and I were expecting that she would be saved that night because she was still alive. But the night came and till the next morning, they didn't manage to save her," he said.

Death toll in central Philippine landfill collapse rises to eight