By Zhan Lisheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-19 09:44

Both domestic and overseas exhibitors landed contracts at the fourth China International Small and Medium Enterprises Fair and China-Japan Small and Medium Enterprises Fair, which wrapped up in Guangzhou yesterday.

According to Lin Ying, secretary-general of the fair's organizing committee, 220,000 professional buyers from 30 countries and regions across the world visited the four-day event. Lin said there were 68,000 attendees from Japan alone.

A total of 24,803 projects at the fair were under negotiation and 2,860 of them made deals during the event. The total value of the contracts was not available.

"Not only (was this) an excellent platform for SMEs at home and abroad to seek market opportunities, but the event also played a very effective role in helping domestic SMEs partner up with their counterparts at home and abroad, and diversify their fund-raising channels," Lin said.

He said that exhibiting SMEs not only benefited from the centralized purchases of global retail giants like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Metro, and local retailers like Gome and Grandbuy, but also from the financing opportunities handed out by the banking institutions and fund-raising agencies.

A total of 19 exhibiting SMEs signed agreements with banks to receive credit worth more than 100 million yuan (US$13.3 million) during the event.