Feature: China-Arab States Expo platform for advancing mutual cooperation

"The China-Arab States Expo is a good opportunity for mutual interaction that shortens the long distance and prompts better communication between China and the Arab world," said Amira Salem, an Egyptian businesswomen in her forties.

The three-day Comprehensive Exhibition of China-Arab States Expo 2016, the first overseas, has kicked off on Monday in the Egyptian capital Cairo, with participation of 38 companies and nearly 300 Chinese and Arab participants.

Salem, who owns Al Nile Company for Importation and Exportation, believes "the exhibition has become an important platform for high-level dialogues, policy communications, economic, trade and cultural exchanges between China and Arab States."

Covering 800 square meters, the 2016 exhibition is composed of 38 units with four parts as Cultural Exhibition of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of China, Traditional Chinese Medicine (Hui Medicine) Exhibition, China-Arab States Youth Entrepreneurship Exhibition and Cloud Computing Technology Application Exhibition.

"I participated in the exhibition only in search for Chinese construction companies," Ahmed Samir, a 32-year-old businessman, told Xinhua.

"After roaming in the Expo's various pavilions, I might conclude some deals on technological products," he added.

Egypt is China's gate to Africa and the Gulf countries which are hungry markets for technological household equipments, Samir said.

In the loud Computing Technology Application Exhibition, Xu Xiaoli, Vice-general Manager of Ningxia Hope Information Industry Co.Ltd, said Youbuy.com, a sub-project of her company, targets building an on-line shopping website to sell China's household electrical appliances to the Arab people.

"High quality with low price is the feature of Chinese household electrical appliances," Xu said. "Through this website, companies and individual customers can do shopping online and we transfer the products from China to the Arab region."

She, as other managers at the expo, said that her company takes the expo as the best opportunity to get in touch with customers and cooperative partners in the region.

Samir agrees with Xu that the online website will facilitate and expand exchange cycle and cut the expenses of traveling and contacts, and eventually strengthen the trade between Egypt and China.

Besides technological, medical and food industries pavilions, the Expo also focused on the cultural and heritage cooperation between Chinese and Arab.

The Cultural Exhibition of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of China elaborately demonstrates the latest achievements in high-quality artistic products, cultural facility constructions, cultural relic protections, cultural industry development and cultural exchange with foreign resources.

At the 100-meter painting scroll named "Muslim World in Chinese Painting," a Chinese handicraftswoman in her thirties displayed "Ga Meizi" Hui Chinese paper-cutting arts, which is an art style in the Hui people, a Muslim minority group in China.

"I made a special paper cut, combining the pyramid, camels and China's great wall together," she added, noting this is her first time in Egypt.

Her professional and sophisticated paintings mirrored the old history of Egypt and China in a captivating piece of art.

"Dating back to the history, the trade cooperation linked the two countries, so I made this paper cut to describe the history and wish a good future," she said with a smile.

In addition to the red paper, which represents luck for Chinese people, the lady also mixed her artistic pieces with different colors to make it more diversified.

The Chinese-Arab State Expo is an important mechanism in the joint efforts of China and Arab States to build "the Belt and Road" with remarkable achievements.

"The Expo is of important meaning, promoting the communication between China and Arab States, deepening friendship between the two peoples and increasing the level of practical cooperation, main pillars of the Belt and Road Initiative," said a Chinese exhibitor who has an Arabic name of Hassan.

"With many branches in Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, my company is specialized in gathering the written heritage, very old versions of holy book of Muslim Qura'an that have been transferred via the old Silk Road, and holding small museums in China and some of Arab and African countries," said a Chinese businesswomen, who used to live in Yemen and was educated in Saudi Arabia.

Since the Expo was first held in Ningxia in 2010, some 876 agreements of various types have been signed with a total of 436 billion yuan (66.3 billion U.S. dollars) in contract value. Endit