by Xinhua writer Tai Beiping
BEIJING, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The seventh edition of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) started on Tuesday, offering countries and companies across the globe a grand platform to showcase their products and services, and a valuable opportunity to tap into the vast Chinese market.
On top of the national level import-themed expo, China has recently unveiled a series of initiatives, including broadened visa-free policies and eased investment restrictions, to open its doors even wider to foreign visitors, investors and business doers.
As the country presses forward with its high-quality opening-up policies, an enormous boost is widely expected in global trade, investment, and people-to-people exchanges.
This year's CIIE, running on Nov. 5-10 in China's commercial hub of Shanghai, brings together participants from 152 countries, regions, and international organizations, with a record number of 297 Fortune Global 500 companies and industry leaders setting to attend, a testimony to the event's growing international sway and appeal.
The event displays China's clear commitment to expanding imports and promoting trade liberalization. It also serves as a platform for China to introduce new measures to improve the business environment for foreign enterprises, from easing trade policies to supporting cross-border e-commerce and facilitating smoother customs procedures.
Over the past six years, the annual expo has become a signature event of China's high-level opening up and an emblem of its ongoing endeavors to build an open global economy.
Through the expo, China has signed trade agreements worth billions of dollars and opened its domestic market to a wide range of foreign goods and services, thereby delivering benefits to both domestic consumers and global suppliers.
This commitment to shared prosperity and economic globalization makes the CIIE a major contributor to global economic stability and a driver for cross-border trade and investment, particularly at a time when global trade is fraught with uncertainties and protectionist pressures.
China is also on the move to make visits by foreign tourists and businessmen much easier. Starting from Nov. 8, citizens holding ordinary passports from Slovakia, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein and South Korea will be able to travel to China visa-free.
This move, coupled with other visitor-friendly measures, promises to give a further boost to foreign arrivals. In the third quarter this year, China registered an influx of 8.186 million foreigners with 4.885 million of them visa-free, which represent year-on-year upsurges of 48.8 percent and 78.6 percent respectively.
Local governments across China are also stepping up hospitality offerings. A brochure of "Welcome to Beijing: Essential Tips for New Arrivals" has been introduced in Beijing with essential tourism information; and Shanghai has equipped its taxis and subway stations with devices that accept foreign bank cards. Tourism hubs like Chengdu and Xi'an have also taken new measures to make foreigners feel at home.
Substantial strides in fostering a more favorable environment for foreign investors have also been made recently. The new edition of China's national negative list for foreign investment, which took effect Friday, eliminated the remaining restrictions on the manufacturing sector.
The country has thereby removed all barriers to foreign investment in manufacturing, a testament to its global leadership in manufacturing openness, especially as some developed countries are still bent on limitations on foreign manufacturing investments.
An ever opening up China, as multiple pundits have observed, is a tremendous boon for the rest of world, adding impetus to global economic recovery especially amid the evolving and turbulent international landscape. ■
