The 2015 Coal Trade Fair and Summit Forum is being held at the China Taiyuan Coal Transaction Center from Dec 22-26. More than 440 coal production, transportation and sales companies; financial service providers; and over 1,500 dealer representatives and users attended the opening ceremony. Fu Jianhua, vice-governor of Shanxi, delivered a speech at the ceremony.

The 2015 Coal Trade Fair and Summit Forum is held at the China Taiyuan Coal Transaction Center?on Dec 22. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

This year marks the third session of the coal trade meeting since the center was established. The center has actively explored a marketized coal trading system and business model. It realized annual contracts of 788 billion tons at the first session and 955 million tons at the second. The meeting has attracted more than 2,000 dealers and 70,000 visitors nationwide this year thanks to its thorough marketized trading.

The meeting is being held at a time when Shanxi is making great strides in coal and coke highway sales system reform and China is pushing for coal resource tax reform. The meeting is part of an effort by Shanxi to adapt itself to the national coal reform and boost marketized coal trade. It respects the market and focuses on fair trade, service innovation and win-win cooperation.

The meeting invited Zhang Liqun, a macro-economic researcher with the State Council, and Hu Yuyue, director of the Beijing Technology and Business University's securities and futures research institute. It hosts studies on coal market development in China and abroad in 2015, national policy direction, and market supply and demand. It offers guidance to enterprises in conducting marketized trade. It enables suppliers and buyers to make contact with each other on their own, conduct negotiations on an equal footing, and sign annual rail and road coal purchase and sale contracts.

"The center will continue to act as a third party and offer dealers quality and effective service to explore a new coal transaction model," said Qu Jianwu. "We will continue to enrich service content and upgrade service quality in trade, information, finance and logistics in 2015."

Edited by Michael Thai