"Strengthening the Construction of an International Exhibition City to Achieve an Upgrade in Shanghai's Capabilities as an International Trade Center" is the speech given by Mr. Sha Hailin, Honorary President of Shanghai MICEE Institute and Former Vice Chairman of Shanghai Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee, at the 4th China International Trade in Services Forum. The article was published in the 21st issue of China Conference &Exhibition (total 501st issue) on November 15th.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, and the beginning of a new journey toward building a modern socialist country. It is also the first year of China's 14th Five-Year Plan. At this historic juncture, Shanghai is focusing its efforts on thoroughly implementing General Secretary Xi Jinping's important principles regarding the new development stage, new development philosophy, and new development paradigm. Shanghai is earnestly implementing the "14th Five-Year Plan for Improving Shanghai's Capabilities as an International Trade Center". It is promoting the high-quality development of Shanghai's exhibition industry and fully building itself into an international exhibition city, striving to achieve an upgrade in Shanghai's capabilities as an international trade center.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, Shanghai made new progress in moving towards becoming an international exhibition city, and the city has basically taken shape as an international exhibition city. This is mainly reflected in three aspects:

First, Shanghai has the world's largest exhibition venue capacity. Shanghai has 9 professional exhibition centers with nearly 1 million square meters of indoor exhibition space.

Second, Shanghai has the world's largest exhibition space. In 2019, Shanghai held over 1,000 exhibitions with a total exhibition area of 19.41 million square meters. This scale makes Shanghai the world's number one city in terms of exhibition area.

Third, Shanghai has the world's largest number of exhibitions among global cities. In 2020, the proportion of international exhibitions reached 78.9%, with Shanghai steadily ranking first globally in the number of top 100 international trade shows held. Shanghai released the first provincial-level local regulations on the exhibition industry nationwide. It has successfully held three China International Import Expos (CIIE), and the spillover effects of the CIIE are gradually becoming apparent.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Shanghai will focus on adapting to the new development stage, implementing the new development philosophy, and facilitating the new development paradigm. It will accelerate the building of a socialist modern international metropolis with global influence. This is a crucial five years for embarking on a new journey to deepen the building of an international trade center and achieve an upgrade in Shanghai's capabilities as an international trade center. The aim is to basically build itself into a global trade hub, Asia-Pacific investment portal, international consumption center city, Asia-Pacific supply chain management center, and high ground for trade and investment system innovation. The goal is to fully build itself into an international exhibition city, providing important support for Shanghai's construction as a central node of the domestic large cycle and a strategic link between domestic and international dual circulation. This will be reflected in the following five aspects:

First, the scale of trade and investment will steadily expand. Shanghai will maintain its position as the world's number one city in terms of port cargo throughput and remain among the top cities globally in terms of service trade imports and exports. Total retail sales of consumer goods will be the first to exceed RMB 2 trillion, remaining first among cities nationwide. Actual utilized foreign investment will be stable with gradual progress. The comprehensive competitiveness of exhibitions will enter the forefront among global exhibition center cities.

Second, resource allocation capabilities will gradually improve. In bulk commodities such as non-ferrous metals and steel, Shanghai will cultivate transaction platforms worth hundreds of billions or trillions of RMB. Prices and indices of some commodities will become important international barometers. Global resource allocation entities will accelerate their concentration in Shanghai. The proportion of top 100 international trade shows held in Shanghai will further increase.

Third, open innovation capabilities will continue to strengthen. Shanghai will implement a new round of high-level opening up benchmarked against international high-standards economic and trade rules. It will accelerate the building of an international hub port for digital trade, with digital trade growing at an average annual rate of around 4%.

Fourth, the leading role of consumption will become increasingly prominent. Shanghai will continue to build the "Shanghai Shopping" brand, and basically build itself into an international consumption center city that leads global consumer trends.

Fifth, the trade and investment environment will become more convenient. The level of openness and transparency towards foreign investment will further improve, with a significant increase in the level of liberalization and facilitation. The facilitation level of cross-border trade will rank among the leading economies in global shipping.

Shanghai will take enhancing the quality of exhibition industry development as an important grip and driving force to promote the building of Shanghai as an international trade center. This will be mainly reflected in the following five aspects:

First, make every effort to enhance CIIE's global influence and competitiveness. Shanghai will focus on hosting a high-quality CIIE, transforming exhibits into commodities and exhibitors into investors. It will give full play to CIIE's role as four major platforms for international procurement, investment promotion, people-to-people exchanges, and open cooperation, and continue to amplify CIIE's spillover effects. Shanghai will promote exhibition model, technology and mechanism innovations, striving to build itself into an international exhibition city with more mature market mechanisms, more vibrant exhibition enterprises, greater concentration of brand exhibitions, and stronger global influence.

Second, focus on expanding international exhibition activities. Shanghai will promote the implementation of projects such as the United Nations Procurement Conference, China International Public Procurement Forum, and United Nations Asia-Pacific Procurement Centre. It will advance the construction of Chongming Dongtan International Fishery Trade Center. Shanghai will optimize the layout of international markets, support industry organizations and trade promotion institutions in building public service platforms, help enterprises participate in domestic and foreign trade promotion activities, and encourage enterprises to participate in overseas self-hosted exhibitions and professional exhibitions. It will support enterprises in accelerating the establishment of a multi-level international marketing service network.

Third, continuously amplify CIIE's spillover effects. Shanghai will promote trade upgrades, refine, enhance and strengthen permanent display and trading service platforms, and increase the number of domestic and foreign professional buyers. It will promote industrial upgrades, host major events such as Shanghai Promotion Convention well, advance the implementation of major projects and headquarters upgrades. It will promote consumption upgrades, build itself into a "global launch pad for new products", encourage time-honored brands and intangible cultural heritage brands to showcase and promote themselves at CIIE, and enhance the attractiveness and influence of CIIE's regular high-quality tourism routes. Shanghai will build the Hongqiao International Economic Forum into a world-class high-level forum, and elevate CIIE's innovative policies into regular institutional arrangements according to law. It will improve urban service guarantees to high standards, striving to build itself into a modern international model of urban governance system and governance capabilities.

Fourth, continuously enhance the exhibition industry's capabilities in global resource allocation. Shanghai will gather high-level exhibition organizers, greatly attract the headquarters of international well-known exhibition companies, domestic and foreign professional exhibition organizers and their upstream and downstream supporting enterprises. It will encourage local exhibition companies to increase their organization capabilities and international influence through domestic and international cooperation, mergers and acquisitions. Shanghai will innovate exhibition service models to achieve online-offline integration and development of the exhibition industry.

Fifth, carefully build an internationalized urban exhibition promotion system. Shanghai will form a leading exhibition industry standards system, build exhibition industry highlands in terms of business environment, deeply implement local exhibition regulations, and establish precise and efficient policy promotion systems at municipal and district levels. It will strengthen international publicity and promotion to improve the overall image of Shanghai as an international exhibition city.

In Shanghai's development process, we have continuously felt General Secretary Xi Jinping's cordial care and earnest exhortation, the CPC Central Committee's strong leadership and specific guidance, as well as the great support and targeted assistance from national ministries and commissions. This has greatly inspired and motivated Shanghai comrades. The major significance of the Ministry of Commerce's decision to locate the National Exhibition Center in Shanghai a decade ago will become more and more apparent as time goes by and the exhibition cause develops.