From June 24th to 25th, 2024, the Jinjiang Conference on High-Quality Development and Innovative Practices in Domestic and Foreign Trade was held in full swing, attracting 146 overseas buyers from 36 countries and regions such as Russia, India, ASEAN, the Middle East, and Africa, as well as 30 domestic purchasing agents.
This event, themed “creating in Jinjiang, trading with the world” is an innovative move. The conference gathered 118 platform resource providers across eight categories, including exhibition services, specialized markets, port carriers, and fashion design, and was accompanied by a series of activities such as industrial inspections, roadshow promotions, and exclusive matchmaking events, enabling supply and demand sides to achieve zero-distance, low-cost, and high-efficiency cooperation and matchmaking.
In the exhibition hall, all seats in the three interactive negotiation areas—industry scenarios, procurement matching, and platform resources—were packed. Business visitors with different cultures and languages were engaged in negotiations and exchanges. The industry scenario zone showcased new products and technologies from Jinjiang’s advantageous industries, including textiles, footwear, slippers, swimwear, and smart equipment. Eye-catching Jinjiang products such as variously shaped slippers, highly functional fabrics, umbrellas tailored to different scenarios, food products covering various categories, and technologically advanced smart machinery attracted the attention of many domestic and overseas buyers.
“The purpose of hosting this conference is to build a production and marketing cooperation platform integrating brand display, trade negotiation, and procurement matching. By creating multi-dimensional negotiation and matching scenarios, we aim to help local brand enterprises precisely connect with overseas channels, provide a precise collective procurement platform for buyers, service providers, and e-commerce platforms, and offer an immersive experience of the advantages of characteristic industries and the strength of domestic brands,” said Lin Qi, Director of Jinjiang Municipal Bureau of Commerce.
It’s also noticed that most of the exhibition stands were organized in the form of industrial associations or alliances, allowing foreign merchants to conduct one-stop negotiations for the products and clients they need.
“We organized more than ten corporate members to participate in the event this time, and everyone brought their new samples, showcasing a wide range of cutting-edge functional fabrics at the forefront of current technology. The conference set up negotiation areas according to specific industrial categories, significantly improving the precision and efficiency of connections for foreign merchants,” said Chen Wenlan, Deputy Secretary-General of the Jinjiang Textile Dyeing and Finishing Industry Association. Chen further explained that nowadays, Jinjiang’s textile industry is becoming increasingly export-oriented, with export-oriented enterprises accounting for 50%, hence the high enthusiasm for participation.
The innovative exhibition format has also garnered widespread praise from overseas buyers. “In the past, we had to visit over 100 factories to meet so many high-quality suppliers. Now, by attending such a grand conference, we can purchase all the products we want in one stop. This experience is truly amazing!” Said Ihab, the head of Ryande Company of Yemen, who has already reached preliminary cooperation intentions with more than a dozen enterprises and plans to recommend Jinjiang’s excellent products to more of his friends in the future.
In the platform resources area, various major foreign e-commerce platforms were highly noticeable. The exhibition booths of e-commerce platforms such as Cdiscount, the number one e-commerce platform in France, Allegro, the largest auction site in Eastern Europe, and Rakuten from Japan, were constantly visited by enterprises inquiring about entry. Wildberries (also known as Ye Mei in Chinese), Russia’s leading online sales platform for shoes, clothing, and accessories, as well as the country’s top e-commerce shopping platform, was also present. “Over the past two years, e-commerce in Russia has entered a rapid development phase, presenting new opportunities for Chinese enterprises to tap into a new market,” said Zhou Xiangqun, head of operations from Wildberries. He added that, in recent years, there has been an increasing number of Chinese products in the Russian market, with Jinjiang’s sports shoes and clothing being particularly popular. They hope to reach more cooperation intentions with Jinjiang enterprises in terms of brand operation and channel expansion through this conference.
“Compared with traditional exhibitions, the content of this conference has been further expanded through the scene-based connection mechanism of ‘scene supply-demand matching—linkage interaction,’ combining trade and investment through activities such as industrial survey, roadshow presentations, and specialized matchmaking events, making it more pragmatic and efficient,” said Chen Cangsong, President of the Fujian Textile and Garment Export Base Chamber of Commerce. Leveraging scene innovation and focusing on precise matchmaking, excellent products embedding China’s traditional artistic elements created in Jinjiang have demonstrated vigorous vitality in global trade.