Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, south China - April 16, 2019 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Canton Fair
2. Various of visitors
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Alex Lin, managing partner, X.One Asia (starting with shot 2):
"This is our fourth year here, and it's the eighth time here. The first time we came here we started with four booths, much smaller. This time, after four years, it's six booths. And we attracted a lot of crowds due to the unique marketing we are using."
4. Various of visitors
5. Board reading "Turkey"
6. Men discussing business
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Fatih Koc, export sales manager, Fornax (partially overlaid with shots 8-9):
"We just made discussion with the customers. They are coming from Egypt. We exhibited in Egypt as well, just last month. But they didn't visit the exhibition in Egypt, but they came here. So we are reaching out to more people."
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8. Men discussing business
9. Businessmen going through tablets
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10. Visitors at Canton Fair
11. Person testing quality of product at Canton Fair
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Gireesh Singh Chowdhury, partner of Rising Hongfa Group (starting with shot 11/partially overlaid with shot 13):
"I wouldn't call it a Canton Fair for China. It's more a Canton Fair for Asia, for what China is doing as a platform for pushing all the countries of Asia, pushing them towards the western frontier. From a commercial point of view, it is something which is extremely stable. It's friendly. It crosses all international boundaries."
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13. Visitors at Canton Fair
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14. Animation showing export transaction at 124th Canton Fair
15. Animation showing trade volume of Belt and Road at 124th Canton Fair

The 125th Canton (Guangzhou) Export Commodities Fair, which opened Monday,expects to have a large number of participants as confidence in the business environment in China is driven up by favorable performance of the Chinese economy in the first quarter.

As China's largest export fair, the biannual event has been held in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou since the 1950s. This year highlights the largest presence of countries along the Belt and Road.

This is partially because of the promising future of the Chinese economy.

According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday, the Chinese economy grew 6.4 percent in the first quarter of this year, higher than expected.

Fair officials have arranged more than 60,000 booths for participating firms to show their products.

"This is our fourth year here, and it's the eighth time here. When it was the first time we came here, we had only four booths, much smaller. This time, after four years, we have had six booths. We have attracted a lot of visitors thanks to the unique marketing method we are using," said Alex Lin, managing partner of X.One Asia.

Fatih Koc, an export sales manager from Fornax, said: "We have just made discussions with customers. They are coming from Egypt. We exhibited in Egypt as well, just last month. But they didn't visit the exhibition in Egypt, but they came here. So we are reaching out to more people," said Koc.

Gireesh Singh Chowdhury, partner of Rising Hongfa Group, said the fair has grown to become a platform for the world to seek business partners.

"I wouldn't call it a Canton Fair for China. It's more a Canton Fair for Asia, for what China is doing as a platform for pushing all the countries of Asia, pushing them towards the western frontier. From a commercial point of view, it is something that is extremely stable. It's friendly. It crosses all international boundaries," said Gireesh Singh Chowdhury.

According to data released by the Fair, the export transaction in the previous session reached nearly 30 billion U.S. dollars, showing a slight decline of one percent. Yet the trade volume among the belt and Road countries during the 124th Canton Fair saw an increase of 2.9 percent, reaching 96.3 billion U.S. dollars.

This years' fair is held in three phases. The first phase lasts from April 15 to 19; the second, from April 23 to 27, and the third, from May 1 to 5.