--- An interview with Mr. Yang Jianchu, deputy secretary general of the CISMEF Organizing Committee and director of Secretariat of the CISMEF Organizing Committee, director of Economic & Trade Commission of Guangdong Province

Reporter: Mr. Yang, thanks for having such an interview with us today. You have been deputy secretary general the CISMEF Organizing Committee and director of Secretariat of the CISMEF Organizing Committee for five sessions. Now the CISMEF has come into the spotlight of the world with its international influence, so please give us a brief introduction of the development course of internationalization of the CISMEF.

Yang: All right. Since the first CISMEF gained great success in 2004, l the CISMEF Organizing Committee has roughly mapped out its development course of internationalization. The development path of internationalization for CISMEF, approved by the State Council, was finalized as: co-sponsoring the annual fair with a country of honor with the establishment of the international exhibition area to attract SMEs from every part of the world to attend the fair for an extensive exchange of goods and services.

Starting from the second session, France, Italy and Japan were successively invited to co-sponsor the CISMEF as the country of honor and this year’s country of honor is Republic of Korea. The 5^th CISMEF also sets up the new exhibition area “ASEM SMES Cooperation & Exchange Exhibition Area”. You can interview Mr. Chen Xiangxin, deputy director and concurrently executive director of the Secretariat of the CISMEF Organizing Committee about the matters related to the Korean exhibition area and ASEM SMES Cooperation & Exchange Exhibition Area.

Reporter: As an international fair, how can the CISMEF distinguish itself out of various domestic fairs by demonstrating its own remarkable characteristics?   

Yang: The target of the CISMEF is to create an international platform for SMEs from every part of the world to “exhibit, trade, exchange and cooperate”, therefore the CISMEF will go global in respect of the sponsors and exhibitors and particularly in respect of the exhibition contents.

The previous CISMEFs have held SME Summit Forum, SME Financing Forum, SME Information Forum, SME special trainings and other activities and we have invited the world-class VIP guests, such as, Italian Prime Minster, ministerial officials from France, Italy and Japan, etc., and experts in the economics circle, banking sectors and financing circle, all of whom have strong influence in their respect working fields.

CISMEF has attracted exhibitors from 30 countries and regions for business inspection, negotiation and purchase; there are some internationally famous purchasers, such as, Wal-Mart, Carrfour and Metro, etc., and some important domestic purchasers, such as, GOME, the new one-kai and Guangzhou Brandbuy, etc.

Reporter: As we know, quite a lot of enterprise exhibitors and business people are allured to each session of the CISMEF, so how are things with the trading volume?

Yang: In each CISMEF we will organize all forms of the face-to-face business and trade negotiations between the suppliers and purchasers, project matchmaking, etc. After the cooperation intent is established between enterprises or between regions and the inspections are conducted, the relevant cooperation agreements will be duly signed. The previous 4 CISMEFs have witnessed the signing of the sales contracts, agreements of cooperation intent among the enterprise exhibitors and the mutual signing of joint venture and cooperation project agreements among the provinces and districts, so I’d like to recommend you to visit the official website of the CISMEF for more details.  

Reporter: Of late, the CISMEF Organizing Committee has held its national mobilization meeting in Beijing. Guangdong is one of the sponsors and host of the 5^th CISMEF, so could you please say something about the preparations? And what are the new measures to be taken by Guangdong Province?

Yang: Guangdong is one of the sponsors and host of the 5^th CISMEF, so we will engage in the preparation in accordance with the unified requirements of the CISMEF Organizing Committee, particularly with efforts made in maintaining communication with the relevant ministries and departments of the state and other executive organizers. At present all departments involved in the preparation of the 5^th CISMEF are taking their initiative to push forward the preparation of the 5^th CISMEF, particularly exhibition promotion, business cooperation invitation, publicity and preparation of the exhibition halls and the reception work, etc., in an orderly way. Guangdong is a pioneer in China’s reform and opening up, so it is highly responsible for delicately streamlining all activities for the CISMEF, enhancing the service level with greater efforts so as to pay more attention to the scheduling, key point and the specific implementation of the plans and to provide a better, more pragmatic and state-of-the-art exhibition, trading, exchange and cooperation platform.

Besides, I am the chief person in charge of the departments for foreign trade and economic cooperation in Guangdong and sure I will make greater efforts to organize more SMEs in Guangdong to attend the fair. We have gained the rich experience from the previous CISMEFs. However, we will further emancipate the mind and effectively sponsor the 5^th CISMEF in the positive attitude of reform and opening up. The CISMEF should not be the “large shopping mall”. The exhibition arrangement in Guangdong is focused on the strategy of “Dual Transfers” so as to promote the industrial structure upgrading and the regional interactive coordination development by taking advantage of the good opportunity of the CISMEF. It is strongly hoped that the SMEs in Guangdong and all departments providing services to all SMEs in Guangdong will join efforts to create a good platform to bring the performance into spotlight of the world.

Reporter: You just mentioned “Dual Transfers”, so could you please give us an outline of it?

Yang: The concept “Dual Transfers” was first put forward by Mr. Wang Yang, a member of Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the secretary of Guangdong Provincial Committee of CPC at the 2^nd Session of the 10^th plenary held at the end of 2007. It highly features the transfer of part of the lower value-added and labor-intensive industries to areas of the east & west wings and the northern mountainous areas in Guangdong Province and the transfer of the surplus rural labor so as to promote the optimal distribution of the human resources for the rapid economic development.   

“Dual Transfers” plays the role as the breakthrough point for the economic structural adjustment in Guangdong and is the important achievement generated from the mind emancipation movement for half a year in Guangdong Province. On May 29 this year, Guangdong Provincial Government officially issued “A Decision Concerning the Industrial Transfer and Labor Transfer” and seven other supporting documents for the specific arrangement of the industrial and labor “dual transfers” with the investment of approximately 50 billion RMB yuan within five years from 2008 to 2012 with the unprecedented supports from the provincial government.

Reporter: How does the policy of “Dual Transfers” bear on the CISMEF?

Yang: SMEs in Guangdong account for 99% of all industrial enterprises. Most of SMEs are engaged in manufacturing, processing trade and other labor-intensive industries, which are subject to the multi-pressures, such as, exterior environment and structural transformation, etc., so they are pressed for seeking new development space for structural transformation. Let me give you an example here: at present the furniture manufacturing, leather and garment and hat industries in the Pearl River Delta account for 25% of all laborers in the whole province, but they only yield 8.5% added value. Environment and resources, land bottleneck, population structure and other pressures impose restrictions on the sustained development of SMEs in Guangdong. Here I’d like to quote a remark made by Secretary Wang Yang while he made the industrial investigation in Dongguan City, “If SMEs do not take their initiative to adjust the industrial structure today, they will be passively adjusted by the industrial structure”. “Going global and drawing on the advanced experience” is the basic experience we have derived from the economic development. The CISMEF has attracted enterprise exhibitors from more than 30 countries and regions and several thousand domestic enterprise exhibitors from all provinces and municipalities and all kinds of investment promotion and invitation fairs for the promotion of the regional economy and the county-level economy have provided the resources for our “Dual Transfers”. At the same time we will bring the spirit of the talk delivered by Secretary Wang Yang at the “Dual Transfers” meeting into specific implementation and give strong support to the development of the surrounding provinces and the Pearl River Delta Region and incorporate them into the scope of “Dual Transfers’.

Reporter: Would you please give some specific instructions on how SMEs can rely on the CISMEF to realize the “Dual Transfers”?

Yang: First of all, the CISMEF will play the role as a bridge of “Dual Transfers” linking up SMEs so provide the opportunity for the structural transformation of SMEs and a development platform for them.

One the one hand, we will guide SMEs, privately-owned enterprises to take their initiative to participate in the industrial structure adjustment by means of exhibition distribution and arrangement, exhibitors’ exchange and communication, top-level forum, special lectures, etc., particularly by capital, technological transmission and industrial transfer to the east and west wings in Guangdong and assistance to the relocation of the lower value-added and labor intensive SMEs so as to seek better development environment, thus solving the industrial structure imbalance in some districts, the defects of the irrational resource distribution. On the other hand, efforts made by “six ministries and one province” for the CISMEF and its international features will be brought into full play and governments and the competent departments will act as the bridge of communication so as to introduce the value-added enterprises from the advanced domestic and overseas manufacturing industry, new and hi-tech industry and modern service industry and help the enterprises to set up the correlated industrial chain and industrial cluster community and substantiate the enterprise strength and form the national and even the international industrial center.

Therefore, on the principle of “Exhibition, Trading, Exchange and Cooperation” of the CISMEF, we will play the active role as the “”match-maker” to promote the “Dual Transfers” and help SMEs to mitigate the “throes” and the overcome the barriers in the process of the industrial transformation and upgrading of the SMEs and add fuel to the industrial transformation and upgrading of the SMEs. I strongly believe that with the promotion of the “Dual Transfers” for enterprises in Guangdong, the innovative undertaking space for the new Guangdong merchants will be greatly widened. The CISMEF also offers a good opportunity for the SMEs in other provinces and municipalities in Mainland China.

Reporter: What does the new concept “new Guangdong merchants” refer to?

Yang: The new concept “new Guangdong merchants” not only refers to the merchants of Guangdong natives seeking overseas development but also the people in the industrial circle from other provinces. The new Guangdong merchants grow prosperously together with the reform and opening up for several generations, either young or old, so this concept highlights the humanistic spirit of the opening up and compatibility of Guangdong. Wang Yang, a member of Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the secretary of Guangdong Provincial Committee of CPC gave the precise explanation of the connotation of “new Guangdong merchants” at the first meeting of new Guangdong merchants held in Guangzhou on May 27, 2008.

Reporter: How can the CISMEF help new Guangdong merchants realize the goal of creative business undertakings?

Yang: The 5^th CISMEF provides the hard-won opportunity for the “Dual Transfers” of the SMEs. In the meanwhile, it is also a good opportunities for the “new Guangdong merchants” to actively respond to the call made by Secretary Wang Yang to make their debut by demonstrating their ingenious innovative capability and the full command of their own famous brands. We will motivate more enterprises in Guangdong to attend the fair and hopefully the 5^th CISMEF will play the role as an international platform to promote the new Guangdong merchants to “go global”, to set up their factories in foreign countries and other places, to tap resources, energy and expand their development opportunities so as to further expand and strengthen the enterprises and continuously enhance the international competitiveness and influential power of the enterprises.

After Guangdong launches the “Dual Transfers” into operation, some places actively respond to it in the first time. For instance, Fushun Municipal Government conveys its willingness to jointly set up the cooperative platform with Guangdong Chamber of Commerce at the New Guangdong Merchants Meeting in hopes of introducing the transfer of fine chemical industry and daily chemicals industry into Fushun. With the promotion of “Dual Transfers’, SMEs will be endowed with vast market opportunities, which will promote the upgrading adjustment of the industrial structures in Guangdong Province. So in this sense, the CISMEF is not only an international platform for the SMEs in the whole world for “exhibition, trading, exchange and cooperation” but also plays a positive role in promoting the local economic and trade development, particularly the industrial structure optimization.

Reporter: Millions of thanks for sparing precious time out of your tight schedule for this interview. We wish the 5th CISMEF better and more effective.