The 101^stSession of Canton Fairwill be held in Canton city，Guangdong prlovince from April15 to 30，2007．The fair used to benamed as China Export CommoditiesFair for 100 sessions，is to be rebrandedas China Import and Export Fair．Bychanging the name，a new service asimport will be added，so as to encouragemore import to meet the capacious mar-ket demand in China market，pursuiringa more balanced and healthier interna-tional trade development．

Xu Bing，Deputy Secretary Generalof Canton Fair gave a brief introductionof the most recent fair at a press confer-ence at the 101^stCancon Fair by the Min-istry of Commerce．

The exhibition Diaces amount to31，682，for 274 more than the last ses-sion，the exhibition area totals to 634，000sq．meters，the net exhibition area willbe 285，000 sq.meters．

The import exhibition area coverstwo categories including industrial andconsumer goods，machlnery equlp-ments．small vehicles and parts，elec-tronic information，home appliance，hardware and tools，building materials，kitchen and sanitary goods，daily con-sumer goods，decoration and gifts，jew-elry，food and agricuhural products．

So far．303 enterprises from 37coluntries and areas have confirmed theirparticipation，including 7 enterprisesfrom 6 the most underdeveloped coun-tries．The fair will invite at least 6000dornestic professional purchasers．

The export exhibition area will bereadv to accept 50 domestic trade del-egations and 14430 domestic emerprises．

Canton Fair will continue the IPRprotection and strengthen the punish-mems on the IPR violating emerprises．

Gao Hucheng，Vice Minister ofthe Ministry of Commerce gives aspeech at the press conference：

On October 15，2006，at the open-ing ceremony of the 100^thCanton Fair，Premier Wen JiabaO announced onbehalf of the Chinese government thatthe 101^stSession of the Canton Fairwill intmduce a new service as importfunction to its participants：match-ing overseas exhibitors with Chinesepurchasers．In light of the introductionof this service，the fair's name has of-ficially been changed to\"China Importand Export Fair\" This is by far themost critical reform to the structure ofthe fair since its inception 50 years ago．

The current climate of economicglobalization，as seen most vividly in thesharp rise in international trade．is driy-ing the growth of the glpbal economy，Along these lines，China is consistentlyenhancing the scope of its\"Teform andopening-up\"policies in order to ensurethe healthy and stable inertia of its owneconomic growth．

This most recent Canton Fair wasthe most Important and largest-scaleimernational fair in China ever. Its newimport servlces demonstrate that theChinese government is actively Dursu-ing a positive integration of China'seconomy into the global economy，andalso that the Chinese government seeksto balance of China's trade balance withother countries．

China currently is the world's thirdlargest trader in terms of its foreign tradevolume，and we need to regard improve-ment of the trade quality as the mostimportant objective for development，along with promoting the healthy andbalanced development of foreign trade．So by adding an import service to thetair，we are trying to improve the qual-ity of our market and trying to open anew channel for quality foreign goods toenter the Chinese market．We'll promotethe Canton Fair as an important platformfor promoting the optimization of Chi-nese import and export commodities．The fair will become an important factorin opening the domestic market．We willcooperate with the fair organizers andpartlcipants in the pursuit of this goal．

China is a large export country，and a large import country as well．In2006，China's total imports amounted toUS$796 billion．China also has showna large marketcapacity in thetechnologies ofenergy savingand environ-mental protec-tion．As regardsconsumablegoods，Chinahas recentlyshown a strongtrend towardsdiversifica-tion．We hopethat foreignbusinessper-sons will findnew markets，new opportunities and new partners inChina，by efficiently utilizing the newimport senrvice of the Canton Fair.

The Canton Fair will continue itsefforts in the area of IPR protection．The Chinese govenment attaches greatimportance to IPR protection，and theCanton Fair is no exception．In 1998．the Canton Fair established an agencyspecifically to handle all IPR suits whichmight arise．

We believe that the new import ser-vice at the Canton Fair will help to pro-mote a new level of trade quality．whichin turn will go a long way towards thehealthy development of the Chineseeconomy and balanced trade relationswith foreign countries．