Five general and five professional trade matchmaking events took place. The general matchmaking sessions featured close to 10 categories of specialty products from CEEC. Five professional trade matchmaking events were held in sectors such as guest countries, tourism, technology, and wine, attracting more than 3,000 domestic buyers from 26 different delegations.
According to different countries, industries and categories, the sponsor of the matchmaking events arranged pre-exhibition matching, in-exhibition negotiation and post-exhibition follow-up, and focused on contract signing and policy fulfillment. The multi-round general and professional matchmaking sessions, which lasted for four consecutive days, enabled businesses to conduct "one-on-one" networking and product display.
The attendees of the matchmaking event included purchasers from Jilin, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai and other provinces and cities who came prepared to seize the business opportunity by exchanging business cards, introducing goods, making inquiries, comparing quality, and negotiating to reach the purchase intention.
At the special promotion meetings in Lithuania, a guest country of honor, Lithuanian guests introduced the business and investment environment, financial technology environment, Klaipeda Free Economic Zone, trade development and tourism development of the country.
Andrius Sankauskas, representative of Lithuanian Enterprise Agency, mentioned in his speech, "When the wind direction changes, some build walls and some build windmills. We are willing to find people who build windmills here."
"We are engaged in electronic communication and want to sell some hardware to the European market. Two days ago, a friend recommended Lithuania to me, so I came to this special matchmaking event to see if there is any opportunity for cooperation." Ru Guang, director of the international marketing department of Ship Group in Zhejiang, took time to attend the presentation of Lithuanian guests and read the detailed introduction manual.
Ru Guang said that after being upgraded to a national-level exhibition this year, the 1st China-CEEC Expo will undoubtedly further enhance the cooperation prospects between Ningbo and CEEC, and promote common prosperity in cross-border exports, high-end manufacturing, tourism services and other fields. "Lithuania has a stable political system and developed economy. The key is that few competitors have entered this market so far, thus making it a blue ocean market to be developed."
Rasa is a tourism operator from Lithuania. During the matchmaking event, she introduced Lithuanian tourism projects to guests in Ningbo. She said, "There is a huge market demand for European tourism in China, but Chinese people are more familiar with France and Italy. We want to tell you that Lithuania is not a mysterious country, it has beautiful forest rivers and quiet castles ... "
Rasa said that this was her fifth visit to Ningbo. In her eyes, compared with Beijing and Shanghai, people in Ningbo are friendlier. The reason why she attended this event is that she received an invitation from local investment institutions in Lithuania. Thanks to the efforts of the organizer, Rasa successfully connected with a tourism enterprise in Zhejiang, and both parties have the intention to reach cooperation.
Besides Lithuania and Slovakia, purchasers were also attracted by other CEEC exhibits to attend this fruitful matchmaking event. A total of 12 Chinese and foreign enterprises signed contracts at the 1st general matchmaking event of China-CEEC Expo, with a contract amount exceeding USD 13 million.
Beverages, cakes and chocolates from Latvia, red wine and olive oil from Greece, dairy products and rose products from Bulgaria, and crystals and automobiles from Czech Republic were very popular among domestic purchasers. At the general matchmaking event, each "one-on-one" networking only lasted for 20 minutes. Each purchaser was actively involved in the talk with exhibitors about cooperation demand and intention. They complained that "20 minutes is just not enough!"
Ji Lihua, a purchaser from Dongyun E-Commerce Co., Ltd. in Huzhou, attended the general promotion meetings when she first arrived in Ningbo. She said, "Our company is an e-commerce platform and currently mainly sells fresh fruits in China. Nowadays, people have a richer demand for food. Domestic food alone can no longer satisfy their desire for food. I hope to find opportunities for cooperation with food in Central and Eastern European countries."
Ji said that at present, she has an intention to purchase jam foods from Lithuania and other countries, and will continue to negotiate with exhibitors. Such cases happen almost every minute at the expo.
At the signing ceremony between exhibitors and purchasers, Yang Zhenshu, as the exhibitor representative of Ningbo New Foreign Trade and New Retail Entrepreneurship Incubator under Ningbo New Trade Supply Chain Co., Ltd., reached a cooperation of 8 million USD with Hungary in the next three years and successfully signed the contract.
"The products we signed with Hungary this time are mainly alcohol and food." Yang Zhenshu said that the 1st China-CEEC Expo provides opportunities for Chinese enterprises to meet and communicate with foreign exhibitors face to face. "After the exhibition was upgraded, the platform is bigger, which brings more opportunities to enterprises. Our company also hopes to introduce more products from' the belt and road initiative' countries in the future. "