The 1st Western China International Fair was held in Chengdu, Sichuan from May 25 to 28, 2000. With the full name of "China's Coastal Area Products Fair for Contractual Joint Ventures, Cooperative Ventures and Solely Foreign-funded Enterprises and Sichuan Investment Fair", the fair was hosted by units including China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and Sichuan Provincial People’ s Government.

 

The fair firmly seized the strategic opportunities of economic globalization and the development of western regions, and attracted wide attention from governments and businesses from all over China as well as overseas investors and traders. 138 overseas merchants from 17 countries and regions, and more than 5,000 government and business representatives from 16 domestic provinces and municipalities and 21 cities and prefectures of Sichuan participated in the fair and exhibition. 

 

The fair set up 1,200 international standard booths, with a total exhibition area of 30,000 square meters. According to incomplete statistics, 21 cities, prefectural-level municipalities and prefectures in Sichuan signed 98 investment cooperation project agreements with domestic and foreign merchants, with a total amount of RMB 13.76 billion.

 

Tianjin, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Shenzhen, Sichuan and some cities and prefectures in Sichuan held investment seminars and briefings respectively. Among them, the Sichuan Investment Promotion Fair carefully selected and launched more than 1,000 key projects in Sichuan and investment promotion projects for key private enterprises. The trade delegation of the Republic of Slovenia held an economic and trade fair, which attracted more than 200 foreign merchants from more than 20 countries and regions and representatives from over 1,000 enterprises in domestic coastal provinces and cities for investment negotiations. At International Forum on West China Development, Li Yining, a famous economist, deputy director of the National People's Congress Financial and Economic Affairs Committee, professor of Peking University, and Nobuyuki Inoue, President of the Japan-China Economic Association, and other Chinese and foreign experts and scholars delivered wonderful lectures.