"We signed up in August last year. At that time, we were mentally prepared to go back to China for quarantine. We are very glad that we don't need to be quarantined since the 8th. I am very happy and can go home directly for the New Year."
On January 10, Yuan Xiumei, the general manager of Zhejiang Zhihua Home Textile Technology Co., Ltd., who is participating in the International Home and Commercial Textiles Exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany, told China Business News that she arrived in Europe on January 3, "I want to come out and see Look at the market."
In November 2022, she had spent 30 days visiting 10 cities in 5 countries. Although she was quarantined after returning to China, she also gained an intuitive understanding of the international market.
On this basis, after returning to China, they prepared samples for the Frankfurt exhibition and adjusted the colors and styles.
"Some old customers met last time, and they will come to talk this time and confirm the order." Yuan Xiumei said that at the Frankfurt exhibition, they brought more than 100 blankets with rich colors and more than 100 blankets. Throw pillows and more than 40 types of curtains and bedding, etc.
Different from participating in the Frankfurt Messe Summer Special Exhibition in June 2022 as an agent, Yuan Xiumei, who is busy receiving new and old customers at the booth, now has greater confidence, "I think the entire European market has begun to rise slowly. ".
On the same day, Zhuang Ruilin, deputy general manager of Zhejiang Jiajia Children's Car Co., Ltd., who was participating in the Toy Fair in Hong Kong, told China Business News that they were also prepared to return to quarantine at the beginning. On the 8th, nucleic acid testing for all staff after entry was cancelled, and they were quarantined in a centralized manner. I feel very fortunate, "After all, it will be almost the Chinese New Year when I come back."
This is the first time they have gone abroad to participate in an offline physical exhibition in the past three years of the epidemic. They specially brought more than 20 models to the scene. In the end, we will try to get old customers to place more orders and develop more new customers.”
In less than two weeks before the Spring Festival, many foreign trade manufacturing enterprises have stopped work and have holidays to prepare for the New Year.
However, the tide of "grabbing orders" going overseas that started in December 2022 has not stopped because of the approach of the Spring Festival.
Taking advantage of the full lifting of restrictions on the movement of Chinese and foreign people starting from January 8th, those who are still grasping the last tail of the Year of the Tiger to "double grab" have caught up with the good time and have more motivation.
Going to sea "double grab" is busy
As part of Zhejiang's special campaign of "thousands of missions and enterprises to expand the market", on the statistical table of Jiaxing's overseas exhibition delegations in 2023, there are still three business delegations from county-level cities on the way: from January 9th to 12th, Pinghu City organized delegations to participate in the Hong Kong Toy Fair; from January 10th to 13th, Haining City and Tongxiang City organized delegations to participate in the Frankfurt International Home and Commercial Textiles Exhibition.
As the organizer of the business group at the Hong Kong Toy Fair, Zhou Jiazheng, chief of the foreign trade and foreign economics section of the Pinghu City Bureau of Commerce in Zhejiang Province, told China Business News that one of the biggest concerns for companies going overseas in the past two years is that they have to be quarantined after returning home.
This will increase the time cost a lot. "Hong Kong is close enough, it takes seven or eight days before and after coming out to participate in the exhibition, and it takes longer to go to Europe and the United States, and it takes nearly 20 days before and after the quarantine." Mentally relaxed a lot.
A total of 13 companies participated in the exhibition, and Zhuang Ruilin was one of them.
Zhou Jiazheng pointed out that as one of the local traditional export industries, the orders of the stroller industry began to decline in the fourth quarter of 2021. "Orders were normal before the epidemic, and the plans were all arranged. In 2021, logistics congestion, many customers ahead of schedule After placing an order, the order is messed up. The front is done, but the back is gone.” In addition to the shrinking external demand in recent years, the real challenge has made it more critical for customers to go overseas to grab orders.
Pan Songying, the full-time vice president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Tongxiang City Bureau of Commerce, Zhejiang Province, is in charge of organizing enterprises to participate in the exhibition in Frankfurt, and more than 30 local enterprises have arrived in Europe one after another.
The so-called "double grabbing" is to organize companies to participate in exhibitions to grab orders, and the second is to encourage companies to go overseas to visit customers to grab customers and stabilize orders.
According to Pan Songying's statistics, from November 2022 to the present, in the past two months, more than 200 (sub) companies in Tongxiang City have gone overseas to explore markets and visit customers, and have gone to various parts of the world to participate in nearly 20 international exhibitions , and conduct face-to-face negotiations with new and old customers.
"Some companies take advantage of this opportunity to go abroad 10 days in advance, and go to visit customers first, and meet each other." Pan Songying told China Business News that Tongxiang's foreign trade companies make full use of this opportunity to grab more orders and lay a good foundation for this year's foreign trade performance. First battle.
And what is different from the exhibition mode in 2022 is the Frankfurt Hometextile Exhibition. Foreign trade companies will go abroad to participate in offline exhibitions in person.
"A company in Tongxiang originally planned to make online orders with overseas customers. Later, the person in charge of the company decided to go to Europe to negotiate face-to-face. Unexpectedly, the meeting went well, and the customer immediately gave a big order of 8 million US dollars! "In Pan Songying's opinion, one meeting is worse than a thousand emails.
Many companies have not gone out for three years. Faced with the loss of orders and the pressure of shrinking external demand, foreign trade companies have the urgency to go overseas to grab orders.
Zhuang Ruilin said that the company's current overall orders have finally declined due to the impact of the epidemic, especially exports, which have dropped by about 25% compared to before the epidemic.
For this reason, in addition to developing orders, they are also reducing costs and reducing unnecessary material loss.
By the 10th, the Hong Kong Toy Fair has been launched for two days.
"After the feedback from the enterprise, the harvest is still quite big." Zhou Jiazheng said that after the 9th, new and old customers were received. Although it has not fully recovered to before the epidemic, the professionalism of the exhibition remained at the previous level.
"Although I feel that there are not as many customers this year as before, there are still some old customers who have added orders, which is better than expected." Zhuang Ruilin said.
Yuan Xiumei said that in the three years since the epidemic, the overall export volume has experienced a certain decline in 2022 after experiencing growth in the previous two years.
"The biggest pressure in 2022 is the sluggish consumption in the entire European market. Coupled with the skyrocketing sea freight in 2021, it will make it difficult to book space and the unit price of products will rise too fast, so that there will be a backlog of many products in the hands of customers." She said frankly, and then In addition, home textile products are seasonal, and products that cannot be put on the shelves in time in 2021 will affect the sales of that year, and further increase the inventory pressure in 2022.
For this reason, they came to Frankfurt to participate in the exhibition this time, and they brought more styles suitable for the whole year. "Originally, curtains in Europe also have seasonality, but because the overall economic situation after the epidemic is not optimistic, we choose products that are more suitable for the whole year, and then Increase the richness of colors and categories, lower the price, and the overall cost performance will be higher.”
On January 9, the cross-border index released by Ali International Station in January shows that at present, the demand for all kinds of clothing in the United States has rebounded significantly, and there are significant opportunities for my country to export flexible customized clothing to the United States.
In Europe, home renovation has become a boom, and Chinese building materials manufacturers with overseas engineering capabilities will usher in more business opportunities.
Affected by factors such as the continued conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in addition to continuing to deepen the European market, Yuan Xiumei and the others also plan to open up new markets such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada in 2023.
Group formation continues under new troubles
Although domestic epidemic prevention and control policies have been continuously optimized and liberalized, the challenge of the epidemic has not eased. There are also news of visa suspensions in the United States, Germany and other countries.
Among them, enterprises encountered related challenges when they went to Frankfurt to participate in the exhibition.
Germany announced on December 15 that the visa office was temporarily closed, and some exhibitors just happened to be in the queue but couldn't do it.
Some companies that have not had time to apply for visas can only try to enter by applying for visas from other European countries, and then go to Germany to participate in the exhibition.
In addition, some countries have also put forward new requirements for citizens going from China.
In response to these new "troubles", Pan Songying and the others specifically sorted out the new entry requirements and precautions of major countries for enterprises.
At the same time, in the face of the urgency of companies to grab orders, they also organized companies to conduct risk management training, "Some overseas customers place orders quickly, and they place orders after a little inspection, which is very risky for companies. Generally, it still needs a process, so it is also very important to improve the awareness of enterprise risk prevention through training.”
According to the current plan, Zhejiang and many other places will continue to drive enterprises to go overseas through government groups in 2023.
As a city that has set a precedent for "grabbing orders" for business charter flights across the country, Ningbo plans to take April 2023 as a phased node, through government-enterprise linkage, and strive to organize more than 100 overseas city expansion groups, more than 1,000 enterprises, More than 10,000 people will go abroad, strive to realize new foreign trade orders of 10 billion US dollars, add an overseas warehouse area of 200,000 square meters, actually use 4 billion US dollars of foreign capital, and sign a number of Sino-foreign free trade zone strategic cooperation agreements.
Up to now, Ningbo has arranged 263 groups for "expanding the market and promoting attraction".
Hangzhou plans to organize more than 150 delegations and participate in more than 100 professional exhibitions in 2023; more than 3,000 enterprises will go abroad to explore the international market, and strive to achieve an annual increase of foreign trade orders of 100 billion yuan.
According to the news released by the Wenzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce, in the first quarter of 2023, Wenzhou plans to promote 236 foreign trade companies in the city to participate in more than 30 various exhibitions abroad. The exhibitions will be held in 16 countries including Italy, the United States, Germany, and India. 15 industries such as shoes, clothing, glasses, etc.
According to the statistical table of Jiaxing mentioned above, there will be nearly 50 overseas exhibition delegations every month in 2023.
"We are already planning the exhibition after the Spring Festival, and we will combine investment promotion to organize more enterprises to continue to participate in overseas exhibitions to open up markets." Pan Songying said that they have repeatedly emphasized with enterprises through visiting enterprises and holding symposiums that there is no need to go overseas to grab orders. Concern, the policy orientation in 2023 must focus on encouraging companies to go out to participate in the exhibition. "To enhance their confidence, after all, they have not gone out for three years. With the backing of the government and financial and policy support, their confidence will be stronger. ".
In addition to helping companies grab orders, the local government personnel who lead the team to the sea also shoulder the task of attracting investment.
As early as December last year, the relevant person in charge of the Suzhou Bureau of Commerce, which organized more than 200 people to charter flights to Europe, told China Business News that they had already sent invitations to international businessmen to come to China. Clients have sent a strong signal that they will be able to come to China in the near future, and they are welcome to come and see the projects they invest in and the local market after the spring blossoms.” Now that it is liberalized, it is naturally more convenient for foreign businessmen to come to China.
On January 8, Yiwu, Zhejiang, the "capital of small commodities in the world", immediately issued the "Invitation Action Proposal for Ten Thousand International Buyers", encouraging local enterprises and market merchants to invite international buyers to Yiwu for purchasing.
The proposal proposes that the first quarter of this year will be a critical period for Yiwu market to quickly recover passenger flow, and inviting foreign businessmen to Yiwu to purchase goods is a key move to promote the prosperity of Yiwu market.
To this end, on the one hand, it is necessary to vigorously promote the latest policies for coming to China, such as "People who come to China only need to undergo a nucleic acid test 48 hours before the trip, and the result is negative to come to China. No nucleic acid test is required after entry, and centralized isolation measures will no longer be implemented. No more inspections of health codes and nucleic acid negative certificates, you can directly come to Yiwu to carry out economic and trade exchange activities”; on the one hand, we must actively mobilize foreign businessmen to come to Yiwu to purchase.
Among them, the Yiwu market, which will be closed on January 17 and open on February 2, has planned a series of supporting activities for the opening of the market, and will issue relevant supporting policies.