This year’sChinese Building Material and Home Furnishing Middle East and Africa trade exhibition will be held virtually, the Zhejiang sub-council of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and Zhejiang International Trade Exhibitions Company Limited, have said.

This, the organisers said, was in view of the novel Coronavirus pandemic.

The exhibition dubbed ‘Quality Zhejiang Virtual Expo’ would be accessible to global visitors online between May 1, 2020 and August 31, 2021.

Being organised in partnership with MIE, partners of the programme, the Chinese trade exhibition is meant to provide opportunities for companies in Africa and Middle East to showcase their businesses to the global community and also help establish a direct link between Zhejiang suppliers and purchasers from the Middle East and Africa.

A press statement issued by the CCPIT and the International Trade Exhibitions Company Limited on the programme, said the exhibition was in line with the directive by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Chinese companies to organise exhibitions across the world to explore new trade and investment opportunities.

The statement said more than 60 companies were exhibiting online in this year’s trade show and their product catalogue includes construction, building materials, sanitary products, furnishing and household items.

“The B2B matching sessions have been divided into two phases, phase one (June 30, 2020 to July 2, 2020) and phase two (July 7, 2020 to July 9, 2020),” the statement said.

It said that the “technical highlight of this event is the complete usage of virtual platform ‘Global Trade Week’ empowered by MIE Group”.

The statement said the ‘Global Trade Week’ would provide opportunity for exhibitors to register up to eight seconds free of charge and showcase their brand stories and products in the format of images, recordings or live screening and communicate with the visitors who have queries and enter their online conference rooms in real time.

“In addition to desktop-based working, Wechat, the most popular social application among China, has already been linked to ‘Global Trade Week’ which will benefit the mobility of operation,” the statement said.

It added that “On Wechat, all exhibitors could access to existing inquiries and conference appointments from overseas buyers anywhere and anytime without a PC or laptop. At the same time, starting a live chat, a video conversation or a live screening also could happen by a mobile phone”.