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As the world's second-largest economy, China has optimized its response to the pandemic and pledged to increase its support for growth. As a result, many Chinese provinces and cities have sent trade missions to Europe to strengthen ties with their European counterparts.

BEIJING, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Before leaving for the France, Wang Jifeng received an email from his client Younis, a Polish meat entrepreneur, who said he was looking forward to meeting him at Food Ingredients Europe (FI Europe), a European food trade fair held Dec. 6-8 in Paris.

Mr. Wang is the Sales Director for Europe at BLG, a Chinese biotechnology company and one of the world's largest hydrocolloids producers. Hydrocolloids are essential texturizing agents for food and other consumer products. Despite its weight in the sector, the company has been absent from almost all international trade fairs since 2020 because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

As the world's second-largest economy, China has optimized its response to the pandemic and pledged to increase its support for growth. As a result, many Chinese provinces and cities have sent trade missions to Europe to strengthen ties with their European counterparts. Following the recent optimization of epidemiological management, Wang Jifeng immediately informed his customers of the upcoming return of his company to FI Europe. "Younis told me he didn't plan to go this year, but he changed his mind only to meet me in person," he told Xinhua.

In fact, the Chinese company had just concluded a sale with Younis before it even had the opportunity to go abroad. "The meetings were not always for orders, but to make up for what we have been missing over the last three years. A face-to-face hello is worth a thousand emails," Wang said. In Paris, he and his colleagues met with a hundred customers. Their appointment schedule was so busy that they were only able to have lunch after 4:30 p.m. each day of the exhibition.

"It must be admitted that some of our customers, particularly in Europe, have been concerned recently about our supply capacity affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. International customers are now assured of our partnership," said Wang Zhengwei, Vice President of BLG.

The travel of BLG's sales representatives has been facilitated by the Department of Commerce of southeast China's Zhejiang Province where the company is based. Indeed, the provincial government plans to support more than 10,000 local companies in their resumption of business abroad by the end of 2023. The first beneficiaries have already been able to visit their customers in Europe, Japan and the Middle East.

This province is not alone in making efforts to boost the Chinese economy. Sales managers from Guangdong (south), Jiangsu (southeast), Fujian (southeast) and Sichuan (southwest) provinces are currently all over the world to meet their customers.

Also in Paris, in mid-December, in front of a delegation of companies from the Chinese city of Suzhou, capital of Jiangsu, Bruno Bézard, managing partner at the Cathay Capital fund, was positive about the revival of trade between the economic actors of the two countries.

"France and China maintain special relations... We always support China's socio-economic development and the majority of major French companies consider China as one of the pillars of their strategy. We believe in the power of mutual trust," Bézard, who is also a former senior official in France's economy and finance ministry, said in Mandarin.

Morgan Stanley raised its outlook for the Chinese economy in 2023 by expecting an earlier and more notable than expected rebound in activity. The U.S. bank raised its forecast for the country's GDP in 2023 to 5.4 percent, from 5 percent previously.

For its part, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated in December that the sector would return to profitability next year for the first time since 2019. It now forecasts a net profit of $4.7 billion in 2023.

 French.news.cn | 2022-12-22 18:14