News Media Facilitates the CAEXPO

China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) has been held successfully for ten years so far. At first, people could not call its full name. Nowadays, it becomes the major platform for common development between China and ASEAN. As its popularity and influence keep increasing year by year, journalists from more countries have been attracted to the CAEXPO. Compared to over 300 reporters in 2004, about 1,738 journalists from 275 news organizations both at home and abroad attended the CAEXPO in 2011. The great increase in journalist number shows that the CAEXPO is steadily gaining acceptance.

“The interpreter can talk with me both in English and Myanmar language. I was so happy because I could use my mother language here,” said a journalist from Myanmar. In CAEXPO, she was excited to meet so many journalists from all over the world and learn useful knowledge. It has been 10 years since she became the journalist. In 2012, she attended the CAEXPO for the first time and had a pleasant experience here. Thus, she continued to participate in the expo in 2013. She added, more Myanmar merchants came to the CAEXPO as Myanmar jade became hot cakes here.

The relations among CAEXPO, journalists and enterprises are interrelated and interacted: more journalists will be drawn to the CAEXPO as it becomes better; more reports about the CAEXPO will help raise its awareness; enterprises which heard about the CAEXPO will seize the business opportunities by attending the CAEXPO; with the trust of exhibitors, the CAEXPO is like a flower which is in full bloom because of the adequate sunshine and water.

A Cambodian journalist has attended the CAEXPO for 4 years since 2009. As he said, “During the reporting, I can see the great achievement made by China and ASEAN in the economic and trade aspect over the past decade. I found that the CAEXPO in 2013 still made great progress. It attracted more businessmen, especially those from Cambodia. In 2012, about 100 Cambodian exhibitors participated in the CAEXPO and the number grew to 110 in 2013. This embodies that the relationship between China and ASEAN moves forward in a positive direction.”

The positive interaction between CAEXPO and the media help more businessmen know better about the CAEXPO and also stimulate entrepreneurs’ enthusiasm for attending the CAEXPO. “We would like to widen the market in ASEAN countries by taking advantage of the influence of the CAEXPO,” said Zhou Yinjiang, vice president of Guangzhou Leiwest Pak Co., Ltd. According to Zhou, though the China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair) is held annually, the CAEXPO seems more suitable for their products to enter ASEAN market. Via the CAEXPO, his enterprise can exchange with ASEAN counterparts and broaden the market, achieving better effectiveness.

As China-ASEAN relation moves forward, the reports on their relationship have been changed. According to a veteran reporter of Cambodia, China-Cambodia relation and China-ASEAN relation are often reported. As he said, “At first, we just focused on the CAEXPO and our people only knew little about the basic situation, such as its opening date. In recent years, especially from 2009 to 2013, we targeted at a wider range of topics, such as China-ASEAN friendly relationship and China-Cambodia traditional friendship.” Hence, the CAEXPO is the first channel, even the only channel for the public to know about the China-ASEAN relation.

With the help of network media, the CAEXPO arranges various theme reports, round-table conferences and offers an exchange and cooperation platform for enterprises and businessmen. It also maintains the positive interaction with traditional media, keeps enhancing its influence and creates a win-win situation.