On November 13th, 2020, Liaoning International Fair for Investment and Trade (LIFIT), with the theme of “Sharing New Opportunities for Development, Opening a New Chapter in Northeast Asia Cooperation”, was held in Shenyang New World Expo. Zhang Guoqing, Secretary of the CPC Liaoning Provincial Committee, attended the opening ceremony, Liu Ning, Deputy Secretary of CPC Liaoning Provincial Committee, Governor of Liaoning Province, Wang Bingnan, Vice Minister of Ministry of Commerce, Gao Yan, Director of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), and Jang Ha-sung, South Korean ambassador to China, made speeches at the opening ceremony.
After the opening ceremony, Zhang Guoqing and Liu Ning, etc., visited the LIFIT expo hall, with large numbers of visitors among the exhibition tables inside it. Nearly 3,000 visitors of the delegations from 15 provinces and cities came to the fair, with great commercial atmosphere. Zhang Guoqing and Liu Ning, etc., went to carefully watch all the exhibits, such as “time-honored” brands, large models of industrial equipment, products of intangible cultural heritage, and green agricultural products, etc., in the exhibition zones of Shenyang, Dalian, and other cities, and meanwhile, they carefully listened to the relevant introduction given by the expo staff. Zhang Guoqing talked to the exhibitors from time to time, asking about the detailed information of business operation such as enterprise’s product structure, age structure of employees, and marketing structure, etc. He pointed out that Liaoning has advantages in industries, agriculture, ocean development, scientific education and humanities. We shall make full use of, and demonstrate its advantages in the fields of nature, science, culture and finance to develop itself and to improve the relevant abilities, to create the atmosphere of striving to develop, to accelerate the construction of building a digital Liaoning with strong intellectual manufacturing industries, and to display the great picture of Liaoning’s all-round rejuvenation. This fair established a special exhibition zone for a city under the partner assistance project of Liaoning: Tacheng of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Zhang Guoqing went to this exhibition zone and extended warm welcome and appreciation to the exhibitors from Xinjiang. He hoped that the platform offered by the fair would further enhance the communication and cooperation between Liaoning and Tacheng, with more cooperative achievements during the period of the 14th Five-year Plan.
On behalf of Ministry of Commerce, Wang Bingnan extended celebration to the fair. He said that Ministry of Commerce would by all means support the opening-up and economic development of Liaoning in the aspects of constructing Liaoning Pilot Free Trade Zone, integrated pilot zone for cross-border e-commerce, foreign trade export demonstration base and import demonstration zone, etc., to make new contribution to the all-round rejuvenation of Northeast China. He hoped that all guests home and abroad would make full use of this platform to expand the scope of opening-up and cooperation to achieve mutual benefit and win-win situation.
Gao Yan said that CCPIT would like to work together with the people’s government of Liaoning Province and the industrial and commercial circles to build bridges and platforms of promoting high-quality economic trade, offering all-round good-quality services, helping enterprises home and abroad to grasp the opportunities of cooperation, and push the regional economic cooperation of Northeast Asia to a new stage, with the aim of making great contribution to the recovery of world’s economy, and the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.
Jang Ha-sung hoped that the fair would accelerate the process of expanding the South Korea-Liaoning Province cooperation scopes from traditional ones such as processing trade, etc., to the area of new industrial revolution such as artificial intelligence, etc., cutting-edge service industries such as medical care, etc., as well as the area of new form of consumption, and turn the fair into a good-quality platform for strengthening the cooperation and development of China, South Korea, Northeast Asia and the world.
In his speech, Liu Ning, on behalf of the CPC Liaoning Provincial Committee and Liaoning Provincial Government, extended warm welcome and sincere appreciation to all guests of the fair and all friends who have been caring about the development and rejuvenation of Liaoning. He said that the hosting of the first LIFIT is one of the key measures of Liaoning Province to fully implement Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech spirits on the development and rejuvenation of Liaoning and Northeast Asia based on the New Development Principles and the promotion of high-quality development, and it is also the practice of the idea of “making full use of regional advantages with opening-up spirit, and positively joining the new development paradigm”. Currently, Liaoning Province has been deepening the opening-up process with “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” as the guidance, to accelerate the process of Liaoning’s all-round rejuvenation. He sincerely welcomed all enterprises home and abroad to deepen their cooperation with Liaoning and to expand their investment scale here, to share the new opportunities in the fields of industrial rejuvenation, expanding and deepening opening-up scope, innovative development, and environmental-friendly development, to create the win-win cooperative situation and a better future.
Wang Jiang, President of Bank of China, Liu Jiren, head of Liaoning Merchants Association and Board Chairman of Neusoft Group, Motoo Ono, Chief Representative of East Asia and Senior Executive Director of Mitsui & Co., and Jochen Goller, President of BMW China, also made speeches.
The ceremony of contract signing for key projects was held at the opening ceremony. The fair has 137 signed projects, with total value of 380.5 billion RMB yuan, of which 48 key projects were signed by representatives attending the ceremony.
Zhou Bo, Vice Secretary of the CPC Liaoning Provincial Committee, hosted the ceremony. Also presented at the ceremony are all leadership from the Standing Committee of Liaoning Provincial People’s Congress and the CPC Liaoning Provincial Committee, Liaoning Provincial People’s Government, Liaoning Province Political Consultative Conference, and municipal-level governments of all cities in Liaoning; Leadership of all relevant national-level ministries and financial organizations, well-known entrepreneur representatives from Top 500 global enterprises and some of state-owned enterprises, officials from embassies and consulates of Japan, South Korea and Russia, etc., in China, as well as representatives of political and commercial circles from well-known economic trade promotion organizations and global companies, and representatives and visitors from other provinces and cities of China.