Over 700 senior staff and business representatives of over 300 Guangdong companies are busy promoting themselves to Indonesia governments, chambers and companies in the past two days. The Guangdong companies, from the electronic appliance, machinery, metal, mines, investment and trade sectors, bagged tens of contracts, valuing at 597 million USD.

Indonesia is the first stop of this Guangdong trade mission’s 17-day ASEAN visit. The other three stops are Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam. The mission, presided by Party Secretary, composes of enterprises from seven cities of the provinces, namely Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Zhanjiang, Zhaoqing, Qingyuan and Jieyang.

The enterprises are to seek business partners or sign contracts and agreements on trading, resource exploration cooperation, out-sourcing projects and investments. And the large local household electronic products, textile and garments, light industry and building material companies and enterprises are encouraged by the provincial government to start their business or establish plants in ASEAN member countries. And the cooperation on forestry, mine and fishery projects has been emphasized.

Trade with ASEAN more important to Guangdong

The direct and indirect trade with US took up about 40 percent of Guangdong’s total export last year, and the US secondary load crisis and RMB appreciation has caused a slowdown in Guangdong-US trade expansion in the past several months. Meanwhile, Guangdong’s trade with ASEAN last year increased by 26.7 percent, showing ASEAN markets’ increasing interest in trading with Guangdong. The trend means a lot to the province which is suffering an overall foreign trade expansion slowdown. And this mission is expected to widen the ASEAN-Guangdong trade ties.

Editor: Yan