Consul General of Turkey in Shanghai Hüseyin Emre Engin

Editor's Note:

The Fourth China International Import Expo (CIIE) will be held in Shanghai from November 5 to 10 as scheduled. Despite the difficulties brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, global traders plan to gather at the annual event online and offline to showcase their products and services in fields such as healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI) and carbon neutrality, looking to boost their performance in the Chinese market.

The Global Times (GT) interviewed 15 foreign diplomats in Beijing and Shanghai about their engagement and expectations for this year's CIIE. Here is：

Hüseyin Emre Engin

Consul General of Turkey in Shanghai

GT: How does Turkey plan to engage in the CIIE despite facing challenges from COVID-19?

Hüseyin Emre Engin: This year will be a hybrid exhibition. We will be participating in the CIIE by the representatives of our companies as no one is able to travel to China. For this fair, we will also try to arrange some online contacts between our export associations and Chinese counterparts and we will be having a virtual pavilion here to showcase our products, especially our products from the Aegean region of Turkey, more on the food sector. 

I should say that we really appreciate the perseverance of the Chinese authorities to organize these events despite all these strict measures against COVID. 

We believe that the CIIE will again serve as a good platform to ensure the commitment of our companies to the Chinese market and their continued interest in selling to China some quality goods. This will serve as a good platform for this purpose.

GT: What are your expectations for the upcoming CIIE?

Hüseyin Emre Engin: Our basic expectation is to ensure the long term commitments of our companies. We don't have very high expectations because of the low number of companies that are able to be represented here, especially as only those companies that have their own representatives in China are able to participate in the event.

But through our virtual pavilion and through the online contacts, at least they'll be able to continue their engagements with their counterparts here.

The CIIE is not only about selling products. It's also about showcasing the culture of the countries because products, especially food products and beverages, are important parts of the Turkish culture. That's our main priority in the future. We would like to keep it this way.