On the 50th anniversary of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), officials pledged to increase efforts to provide better services.

CCPIT will take advantage of its extensive foreign trade channels and relations and will enhance its contacts and collaborations with international organizations. "We aim to conduct all-round, multi-level and focal trade promotion activities, as well as exchanges with non-governmental organizations," said CCPIT Chairman Yu Xiaosong. CCPIT was set up in May 1952.

He said CCPIT will continue to extend the scope of its services to improve the quality of its information, exhibitions, consulting, legal and publicity services and to help companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to compete on the international market.

The chairman also said CCPIT will also play a faithful part in the examination and approval of organizing exhibitions abroad and hosting international exhibitions at home, improving the quality of international exhibitions and safeguarding the order of the exhibition industry.

China has hosted 645 international exhibitions from 1949 to 1999 and received 174,000 visits from overseas visitors, according to CCPIT statistics.

The China Center for International Exhibition, CCPIT's exhibition arm, said it is actively preparing to build a new exhibition hall to accommodate the increasing demand for exhibitions.

CCPIT is conducting intensive research on the influence of China's entry into the World Trade Organization on domestic industries, and hopes to help companies establish development strategies and personnel and communication training programs with the Chinese Government, said Yu.

The organization is also proposing to set up a co-ordination mechanism with the chambers of commerce and industrial associations to maintain a macro control over pricing, to organize companies to respond to overseas anti-dumping and anti-subsidy charges and promote fair trade and orderly market competition.

CCPIT, also the China Chamber of International Commerce, is holding its fourth plenary meeting in Beijing today.

(China Daily May 15, 2002)