The 100th China Export Commodities Fair (CECF, Stage 1) was held at the Liuhua Road and Pazhou halls in Guangzhou October 15-20, 2006 concurrently. This time, Midea used the same exhibition spaces as on the 99th CECF, at the center of the brand exhibition zone of the Electromechanical Hall; 73 spaces were leased in the name of Midea, Hualing and Royalstar, with a total area of 657 square meters, which ranked first among all exhibitors.
On this great occasion of CECF, a grand opening ceremony and celebration was held successfully together with many celebrative activities. Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice Premier Wu Yi, Bo Xilai—Minister of the Ministry of Commerce, Donald Tsang—Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Edmund Ho—Chief Executive of Macao Special Administration Region, Zhang Dejiang—Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial party Committee and Guangdong Provincial Governor Huang Huahua attended the opening ceremony. In the inspection tour, Premier Wen and other leaders visited the exhibition spaces of Midea Group—the representative brand of household appliances, listened carefully to the business report made by Chairman He, thought highly of the performance of Midea and expressed great expectations for its future development.
This fair covered 5 commodity categories, offered 35 exhibition areas, with a total of 31,408 exhibition spaces, including 4,175 brand spaces, received 14,001 brand enterprises and nearly 190,000 men-times of visitors. Except Midea, Haier, Hisense Kelon, Gree and TCL also attended this fair.
121,576 purchasers attended this fair, a slight increase over the 99th CECF; the gross turnover of Stage 1 amounted to US$22.19 billion, 5.8% more than the 99th CECF; the number of Asian purchasers still ranked first; the number of European purchasers in Stage 1 was 28.5% more than the 99th CECF, an increase of 11.6% over the last autumn CECF; the numbers of American and Oceanian purchasers increased on different levels; that of African purchasers was 32.1% less than the 99th CECF and 6.3% more than the last autumn CECF.