STORY: UK exhibitor at consumer products expo eyes further growth in China market
SHOOTING TIME: April 12, 2024
DATELINE: April 13, 2024
LENGTH: 00:02:19
LOCATION: HAIKOU, China
CATEGORY: ECONOMY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of consumer products expo
2. SOUNDBITE (English): OLIVER RAPPORT, Owner and CEO of Rapport London

STORYLINE:

The fourth China International Consumer Products Expo opens on Saturday in Haikou, Hainan Province.

The six-day event will host over 4,000 brands from 71 countries and regions.

An executive from a British luxury brand shares his thoughts on joining the expo for the first time.

SOUNDBITE (English): OLIVER RAPPORT, Owner and CEO of Rapport London
"This is my first time. So I'm really pleased to be here. It's very exciting. It's a real privilege to be here as part of the UK pavilion. And we're very excited about what will happen over the next coming days.

We've been speaking to the Hainan government for quite a long time. And then this year we decided it would be a great opportunity to come to the show. And we've also come with a few other UK companies, so it's a great opportunity for us all to be together and work together to all develop the market for us in different ways.

There are many opportunities to open, say a company here in Hainan. The (Hainan) free trade zone will make things easier for overseas companies to come and sell. Also, the market will grow here. So there will be lots of meetings of new customers and to develop new products and showcase them here.

We really like the Chinese market. It's a key market for us. We've been working in China seriously since about 2019. The business has gone very well over this time. We've seen very good growth over the last 4 years.

We just see a very big growing middle class, a strong appetite for luxury goods. So we think it's going to be the biggest luxury goods market in the world by 2025. So we're very happy to be here and we want to localize and become a part of it.

So we bought some of our bestselling items here, this show. So we have our unique watch products. So our watch winders, our watch collector boxes, some pocket watches we've brought, and some of our leather goods for travel, mainly for travel, so very exciting, new lines and high quality, which I think the consumer is looking for."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Haikou, China.
(XHTV)