One of China’s poorest provinces sends business team to Russia as post-Covid ties deepen
- Business representatives and provincial commercial officials from Guizhou attend Moscow trade expo as China ramps up efforts to seek export orders
- Official launch of Russian mission in Harbin marks another milestone in bilateral ties following China’s lifting of all Covid restrictions
Representatives from 18 companies and commercial officials from the inland Chinese province of Guizhou landed in Moscow on Saturday morning, local media reported, describing it as the “largest overseas exhibition delegation from Guizhou since the pandemic [began]”.
The trip also marked the “official relaunch of a new journey for foreign trade enterprises in Guizhou to ‘go overseas to grab orders’”, the state-backed Guizhou Daily reported on Monday, using a catchphrase describing a recent government-led push to encourage both state-owned and private Chinese companies to seek business opportunities abroad following a pandemic-induced lull.
The Guizhou delegation is participating in a five-day exhibition of food, beverages and food raw materials in the Russian capital.
The event, which runs until Friday, offered an opportunity to “negotiate face to face and collect information from clients, significantly increasing the likelihood of striking [export] deals,” Lei Shaoxiang, deputy manager at tea exporters Guizhou Super Biotechnology, was quoted as saying by the daily.
Mountainous, landlocked Guizhou – home to some 38 million people – is one of China’s poorest provinces. Its business delegation to Moscow was China’s latest official outreach effort as it ramps up its campaign to help public enterprises seek overseas orders, which had dried up over the past three years due to its own strict Covid-19 border controls and weakening foreign demand.
While the US, Europe and Southeast Asia are the primary markets for export-oriented companies in China’s coastal economic powerhouse provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong, many firms are also turning towards Russia.
The huge Russian market of 144 million people remains a viable destination for Chinese-made food products, medicine, and consumer goods, as Moscow grapples with economic sanctions imposed by the West following its invasion of Ukraine.