Liu Dake: Exhibition is an important starting point for building a unified market

Liu Dake: Exhibition is an important starting point for building a unified market

June 28, 2022, 17:08 Source: China Economic Net

Editor's note -  

Since the release of the "Guideline of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Accelerating the Construction of a National Unified Market", it has attracted widespread attention and positive responses at home and abroad. Accelerating the construction of a unified market is a major decision made by the Party Central Committee and the State Council based on the context of the new development stage and from an overall and strategic perspective.

Although the exhibition sector has been greatly influenced due to the pandemic in the past two years, as long as the exhibition activities are restarted, the industry and urban vitality will be driven at the fastest speed. Therefore, the recovery and revival of the exhibition industry will not only benefit the exhibition industry itself but will also play an important role as a platform in building a unified market that is smooth inside and outside through a "dual circulation", including the commodity market and the element market.

To this end, China Economic Net Exhibition China Channel will have a series of interviews and reports themed "Exhibition: Helping the Construction of a Nationwide Unified Market". Please stay tuned.

What important role has the exhibition industry played in building a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics? And what should it do in the construction of a unified market? China Economic Net Exhibition China Channel conducted an exclusive interview with Professor Liu Dake, an exhibition expert and Dean of the Economics School of Beijing International Studies University.

Exhibition China: As a researcher who has been studying the exhibition industry for a long time, how do you see the significance of building a unified market for the current and future China market construction?

Liu Dake: Since the reform and opening-up, China's economy has mainly relied on the international market to leverage the domestic market, and has achieved impressive achievements. The practice has proved that the market is a core driving force for China's economic growth. However, in recent years, there have been unfavorable factors that few countries have been advocating anti-globalization strategy and launching trade wars against China. In addition, the external market environment has seen great changes. In order to cope with these transformations and stimulate the vitality of the domestic market more fully, the Chinese government has proposed a "dual circulation" development pattern in due course.

"Dual circulation" is not a passive response, but an active action taken by China in the new era. As a country home to 1.4 billion people, China, the second-largest GDP in the world has huge potential for the development of domestic demands and has the economic logic and practical basis for building a domestic circulation. Building a unified market is an important measure to promote domestic circulation. Therefore, it is necessary to remove the hurdles to the market-oriented development, to make up for the shortcomings of the development, and to fully tap the benefits the development brings. In addition, it is imperative to release the potential of the market mechanism. , to stimulate domestic economic development.

The construction of a unified market is by no means to follow the old road of "planned economy", but to better leverage the decisive role of the market in resource allocation. It is not a temporary measure, but a strategy that will be implemented for a long time.

Exhibition China: What important role has the exhibition sector played in building a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics? And what role should it play in building a unified market?

Liu Dake: As an efficient market platform, exhibition activities are of great value in promoting trade, investment, technical exchanges, and international cooperation. Since the reform and opening-up, China's exhibition industry has made great contributions no matter in promoting international economic and trade cooperation or in domestic economic development.

In the context of building a unified market, holding exhibitions are "easy to use, quick to see efficiency, and have a great impact". Exhibitions no matter held online or offline, can help smooth business links, increase investment and improve trade efficiency. They should become an important starting point for promoting the construction of a unified market and a prioritized forward-looking field.

Exhibition China: The pandemic has not only affected the holding and scale of exhibition activities, but also influenced its role as a platform for the industry, market, and regional cooperation. How to recover as soon as possible and take advantage of the momentum to restart exhibition activities with high quality in the context of "building a unified market"?

Liu Dake: First of all, we should seize the time and start it as soon as possible. There’s no doubt that it is correct to do well in epidemic prevention and control and ensure the lives, health, and safety of the people. At the same time, governments at all levels are highly responsive for efficiently coordinating epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development. Therefore, governments at all levels and the competent exhibition authorities should formulate epidemic prevention standards for exhibition activities under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control in light of the actual situation, and encourage exhibition organizers to "do everything they can" on the premise of operating strictly in accordance with the standards.

On the other hand, we must take advantage of science and technology to restart the exhibition. The first is to improve the level and efficiency of epidemic prevention through scientific and technology, and to integrate various epidemic prevention requirements into "one yard" to provide convenience for exhibitors and participating visitors; By means of various means, the exhibition activities will be fully resumed as soon as possible.

Exhibition China: As an industry, how will the exhibition industry build its own unified market? Such as the convention and exhibition industry rules of "speeding up the establishment of a unified market system" mentioned in the "Opinions"?

Liu Dake: Generally speaking, the market-oriented degree of China's exhibition industry is relatively low. On the one hand, many exhibitions were led by the government. So the boundary between the government and the market is blurred, and the progress of market-oriented transformation is slow; on the other hand, some measures launched by local governments cannot fully represent the development goals of the market-oriented exhibitions. That is to say, we cannot call for a market-oriented exhibition while taking measures that objectively affect the process.  Supporting the exhibition sector out of goodwill, but because of the inappropriate method, it fails to achieve the expected effect. In fact, to help the exhibition industry make due contributions in promoting the construction of a unified market, it must first open wider to the market, only an exhibition organized according to market rules can really help improve the market efficiency.  

(Reporter Zhou Yuning)