At the 6th China International Import Expo (CIIE) in 2023, more than 50 Iranian companies and more than 250 Iranian businessmen exhibited their abundant products, including Iran’s featured agricultural products, traditional handicrafts, and cutting-edge technology products in fields of petrochemicals, nanotechnology and medical care, attracting a large number of visitors to stop and discuss business opportunities.

The CIIE is started from 2018 and held in China’s Shanghai annually. Unlike other long-existing exhibitions that focus on export, the CIIE is about boosting import and is the first national exhibition with import as its theme of the world, which was personally initiated, promoted and guided by Chinese President Xi Jinping, serving as a major move of China to open up wider to the world and share development opportunities with partners globally. President Xi Jinping said: “We should commit ourselves to openness to meet development challenges, foster synergy for cooperation, build the momentum of innovation, and deliver benefits to all. We should steadily advance economic globalization, enhance every country's dynamism of growth, and provide all nations with greater and fairer access to the fruits of development.”

Today, the CIIE has become a showcase of China's new development paradigm, a platform for high-standard opening up, and a public good for the whole world. It has been held six times since its launch in 2018. Given the market size of China, the CIIE helps foreign firms showcase and sell their products and services in China and plays multiple roles including scaling up international procurement, promoting investment, facilitating people-to-people interactions and advancing global cooperation, contributing significantly to the growth of the world economy. Now the 7th CIIE is upcoming, and it is learned that the number of Iranian companies participating in the expo is going to exceed that of the previous year.

At the recently concluded third plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the importance of improving the institutions and mechanisms of high standard opening-up was once again emphasized. A more open China is going to deliver greater benefits to the rest of the world. 

Home to a huge population, an expanding middle-class and well-sustained economic growth, China has the deal consumer market for quality products from around the world. In addition, China owns a world-class manufacturing ecosystem constantly fortified by increasing input in innovation and R&D. The country once known for “Made in China” goods is now taking on new features such as “Created in China” and “Designed by China”. To trade in China is to trade for the future.

The CPC also adopted a resolution at its recent central committee plenum on reform measures designed to advance Chinese modernization, including systematic steps to build a unified national market. By removing the inconveniences that foreign films might encounter entering China, this will help them do better as they explore the enormous market of the country. That also promises more opportunities for global growth.

China has done a lot to liberalize and facilitate trade over the years. The government has been conducting reforms to facilitate trade and investment in the country’s Pilot Free Trade Zones. Its customs authorities and other related departments have launched 27 specified measures to improve port services. Its tax administration has been moving to strengthen interdepartmental information sharing, streamline tax refund declaration, and speed up tax refunds for exports. And the list goes on. It is thanks to these measures that in the first half of 2024, China’s trade in goods hit RMB 21.17 trillion yuan, up by 6.1 percent year on year.

Despite the headwinds of protectionism and decoupling faced by the world economy, the trend of economic globalization is irreversible. As an engine for global growth, China will leverage its market size and opening-up masseurs to contribute new impetus to the world economy, which will definitely bring broader space and greater opportunities for China-Iran cooperation and the development of Iran.