The 10th China-Northeast Asia Expo began on Tuesday and will run through Sunday in Changchun, the capital of Jilin province.

Featuring six countries from Northeast Asia, the expo is a significant event to promote cooperation in trade and culture, as well as conversations between economies.

Jilin province is located at the geographical center of Northeast Asia. In 2005, with approval from the State Council, the province hosted the first Northeast Asia Expo, as part of efforts to revitalize the heavy industrial base in China's northeast.

Influx of trade

The most substantial impact the expo brings to Jilin is an influx of trade and investment opportunities. According to organizers, 520,000 professional business visitors have attended the event in the past decade, sealing deals of more than $6.9 billion. Included in that number is an average of 10,000 overseas business visitors each year. In its first nine years, the expo has attracted a total of 806 Fortune 500 companies.

Each September for the past 10 years, buyers and business groups from around the world have gathered in Changchun. Since 2013, the expo has introduced a new "product", the International Business Fair, that is an upgrade of the expo's regular trade fair. According to organizers, the fair has offered a platform for more than 4,000 business visitors to hold exclusive and in-person negotiations on about 8,000 products.

Last year, the expo launched its first Global Trade in Services Conference, which was a highlight of the event. Some 240 politicians, experts and entrepreneurs from 13 countries and regions took part in the conference to discuss such subjects as strategies for China's trade in services in a new era, and the future of IT outsourcing.

In addition to the major events, the expo also features purchasing summits for minority groups and small enterprises in China. These summits, covering specific fields such as energy and medicine, attracted multinational corporations and business groups from around the world.

Industrial experts said that the trade events presented at the expo are of great significance to local businesses in Jilin, by helping businesses promote the advantages of their products, expand their market share in the global landscape and boost business owners' confidence to tap into more overseas markets.

The expo also promoted a range of major projects that the province is seeking investment for to fuel its economy and improve infrastructure.

Automobiles, petrochemicals, agriculture and medicine have historically been the backbone industries in Jilin for attracting investment. In recent years, the province's emerging industries including new materials and clean energy, which were showcased and well received at past expos, have become the new engines of the province's investment growth.

Official data show that from the fourth to ninth expos, 1,581 projects were sealed worth more than 1 trillion yuan ($156.7 billion). By the end of 2014, about 89 percent of those projects were in progress or completed.

The expos brought Jilin province not only tangible progress such as deals and projects, but also new and liberating ideas for doing business and running a city. By exchanging ideas with their counterparts from around the world, local entrepreneurs learn innovative and effective business ideas. The province also started to pay more attention to management efficiency and "soft environment" development in addition to its business environment.

Dialogue initiator

An event mainly acting as a business opportunity provider, the China-Northeast Asia Expo also serves as a bridge to connect countries and regions in Northeast Asia by initiating dialogues between authorities.

The expo's most important and influential program, the High-Level Forum on Northeast Asia Economic and Trade Cooperation, which started in 2007, is a roundtable for political leaders to discuss key issues in the region. The forum was renamed the High-Level Forum on Northeast Asia Cooperation in 2013, indicating a wider coverage.

Northeast Asia lacks a mature and comprehensive cooperation mechanism such as the European Union or the North American Free Trade Agreement and the area's regional cooperation is still at an early stage. Set against this backdrop, the expo aims to trigger political progress by fueling economic development.

The Northeast Asia Think Tank Forum at last year's expo made its key subjects the development of China and Japan and South Korea Free Trade Zone.

The expo is also a global forum where great minds from different fields around the world share ideas.

Cultural exchanges

For Jilin province, and other regions and countries in Northeast Asia, the most subtle but lasting impact of the expo is cultural, as participants learn more about other cultures.

Each expo showcases cultural activities from the most iconic and also the usually ignored cultures of Northeast Asia countries and regions.

These activities are not only spectacular performances for the expo audience and journalists from around the world, but are also "soft power" presentations and exchange opportunities for authorities.

The expo also promotes tourism. With the influence of the expo, new tourism products in Northeast Asia region have developed and more cooperation projects have begun.

According to official data, Jilin province welcomed about 69 million tourists in the first half of 2015, an increase of 16 percent from a year earlier.

As the host of the expo for 10 years, Jilin is internationalizing its infrastructure, service industry and the mindset of residents.

fuchao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/03/2015 page10)