The third China International Import Expo (CIIE), held between November 5 and 10 in Shanghai, is one of the few international conferences to physically take place this year following the COVID-19 outbreak.

Photo taken on Nov. 2, 2020 shows the south square of the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), the main venue for the 3rd China International Import Expo (CIIE), in east China's Shanghai. (Xinhua/Ding Ting)

Despite the uncertainties in the global market caused by the pandemic, the value of tentative deals reached for one-year purchases of goods and services at the third CIIE reached $72.62 billion, a 2.1 percent year-on-year increase.

Zoey Zheng, the China Operations Director of the South Africa-China Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, told People’s Daily Online that through the platform offered by this year’s CIIE, they have received many orders and several cooperation intentions.

At the signing ceremony concluded at the exhibition hall on the 8th, Greenland Global Commodity Trading Hub Group and Karen Beef formally signed a beef purchase intent agreement worth $90 million.

Zoey said the corporation not only has an optimistic view of South African products entering the Chinese market, but also a high starting point for the two parties to continue to explore their cooperation pattern.

Justin Lee is the manager of one import and export trade company in China and two companies registered in South Africa.

He has signed a total of $2 million in deals on import and export trade of agricultural products from South Africa. His company has also signed a letter of intent for strategic cooperation with a leading global rescue insurance company from France.

."The outcome from this expo for us is the best since the first expo in 2018,” he said.

Jacky Li, Chairman of Southern Africa Shanghai Chamber of Commerce and Managing Direct for Launch Technologies SA (Pty) Ltd, said there were orders worth $5 million for South African red wine, and orders worth $50 million for "South Africa green diamond" alfalfa grass.

“To meet the rising consumption demand from the market, Chinese importers are willing to spend more to buy,” Jacky said.

Initial statistics show that at least 411 new products, technologies and services made their China or global debuts at this year's CIIE, much higher than the figure last year, according to Sun Chenghai, deputy director-general of the CIIE Bureau.

The six-day expo, which ended on Tuesday, took up nearly 360,000 square meters of exhibition space, an increase of 30,000 sq m from the previous edition. Nearly 400,000 professional visitors attended the event, according to the official website for CIIE.