An old innovator joins new ones at trade fair

Many innovative products are on display at the 137th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou's Pazhou Complex. But one of the world's renowned past innovators is there, too.

That innovator is McDonald's, whose standardized menus and cooking methods have evolved into what is arguably the leading example of consistency and efficiency in fast-food services on the planet.

When you walk into a McDonald's franchise anywhere — even with its custom tweaks to the food lineup to serve local tastes — you know exactly what to expect. And its success has spawned many imitators.

The McDonald's restaurants inside the Pazhou Complex are hot spots for foreign buyers who are attending the event, also known as the Canton Fair.

Located in Zone A of the complex, one of the two restaurants instantly began pumping out a plethora of food on Tuesday, the event's first day, to achieve top sales among its global fast-food peers.

"We are extremely busy," said the restaurant's general manager, Wu Jiahui. "Before lunchtime each day, the restaurant is already packed with customers, most of whom are buyers attending the fair." Sales at the store often reach their annual peak during the event, she added.

McDonald's began serving the fair's exhibitors and buyers in 1996 with a flagship store in Guangzhou's downtown Dongfang Hotel, adjacent to the old exhibition venue in the Liuhua Complex.

The company later opened two new outlets in the Pazhou Complex's Zone A and Zone B, after the fair moved there in 2008. By the end of April, the number of McDonald's stores in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, will have reached 800.

It is expected that the two restaurants in the Pazhou Complex will host more than 100,000 Chinese and foreign guests during the fair's spring session, according to He Yiman, operations manager for the China Guangzhou market.

"With a strong foothold in the Chinese market and rapid development, more than 90 percent of our food is now sourced domestically," He said.

For domestic exhibitors and foreign buyers, the rapid sales growth of McDonald's restaurants in the Pazhou Complex comes as no surprise. Thousands of business people visit every session of the Canton Fair, the country's largest trade fair in both exhibition scale and transaction volume. On the spring opening day alone, 64,530 foreign buyers visited the event, which is known for gathering myriad businesses and is regarded as a barometer of China's foreign trade success.

In the turbulent waters of the current international trade environment, the bustling popularity of McDonald's restaurants means it's meeting demand from the surge of visitors, but it also reflects the resilience of China's economic and trade exchanges in the global marketplace.

Data from organizers indicate that about 31,000 export-oriented companies (the number exceeded 30,000 for the first time) are attending the fair, drawing some 200,000 foreign buyers for preregistration.

"Pre-registrations of foreign buyers, hotel reservations and flight booking rates suggest that the number of foreign buyers attending the fair will continue to be stable and improve in quality," said Zhang Sihong, deputy director of the China Foreign Trade Center.

Abid Aman, procurement manager of Pakistan's Keramika Outlet, said the fair has become more like a mirror, reflecting the advancement of Chinese products and the expectations of the global market.

"Previously, we focused more on the prices of products, but now quality, design, functionality and environmental friendliness are all indispensable," the manager said. "At the fair's previous sessions, we always found the best solutions."