Visitors take photos in the exhibition hall of Myanmar at the 5th China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) in Nanning on Oct. 23. [China.org.cn]

Myanmar is known for its fine and reasonably-priced jewelry, making the exhibition hall of Myanmar another hot spot for trade visitors. However, despite the large crowd of visitors, most of them are here to look rather than buy.

A salesgirl of Shwe Taung Gems, a Burmese exhibitor, said that their sales volume this year has increased, but not by much.

"We were expecting more visitors for this expo and we are getting them. But this time there are more exhibitors as well as visitors. So combining both factors, our sales volume is not much different from last year's."

But she also recognizes that attendance at the expo has led to an increase in their sales volume.

"Thanks to this expo, our business in Guangxi has been growing steadily, to the extent that we have begun to recruit local distributors," she said.

She spoke for a lot of companies from ASEAN countries. The CAEXPO, proposed by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in 2003 and started in 2004, has achieved great success in providing more business opportunities for companies from both China and the ASEAN countries, and in promoting closer cooperation in the China-ASEAN region.

In 2007, CAEXPO achieved a total trade volume of US$1.42 billion, up 31.5% from 2004. The number of ASEAN exhibitors in 2007 also reached 1124, nearly double that of 2004.

(China.org.cn by Yan Pei, October 25, 2008)