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2008-04-26 | All chapters

Security clampdown on Canton trade fair
Tom Mitchell, Financial Times, 26th April 2008

Tighter security regulations ahead of this summer's Beijing Olympic games have caused widespread confusion at an unlikely venue – China's largest trade fair in the far-away southern city of Guangzhou.

Foreign traders have been told that their Chinese business partners, employees and interpreters, on whom many depend to do business at the semi-annual China Import and Export Fair, have to produce a police document confirming that they do not have criminal records before they can enter the venue.

George Rozo, a Colombian businessman, is one of the many fair visitors who has been caught out by the new rule. On Friday Mr Rozo pleaded in vain with fair registration officials to allow one of his Chinese managers, Cheng Mingxing, to enter the venue.

"We can't make any exceptions," one official told him. "This is a very special fair for our country. There are terrorists who want to take advantage of it."

"This is crazy. My manager has been here the past five years," Mr Rozo said, adding that Mr Cheng was required to go back to his home in Yiwu, near Shanghai, to obtain the required police clearance.

The China Import and Export Fair, better known as the Canton Fair, is the most cosmopolitan event on the country's commercial calendar, attracting tens of thousands of visitors from more than 200 countries.

The spring Canton Fair is divided into two sessions, the second of which opened on Friday. Buyer attendance at the first session fell 5.8 per cent year-on-year to 128,155.

The new entry requirement for Chinese nationals attending the fair comes on the heels of tighter visa regulations for foreign businessmen.

The foreign ministry's Hong Kong office recently began restricting the issuance of multiple entry visas, causing massive headaches for businessmen in the territory who regularly cross the border to visit factories and source products for export.

On Friday the European Chamber of Commerce in Beijing issued a formal statement criticising the changes and the lack of transparency surrounding their implementation, noting that it was "not aware of any official statement from the government concerning a formal change in visa rules ... and is seeking clarification from the Chinese authorities".

Also turned away from the Canton Fair on Friday was Lina Aisati, a Chinese national and ethnic Kazakh.

"It's not your fault; it's just the government's policy,"Ms Aisati's American business partner, Frank Palmer, told her as they left the registration office.

"They are worrying too much. This is usually a pretty good show".

"This new regulation is causing a lot of problems for buyers," admitted another fair official, who asked not to be named.

"They have been yelling at us a lot."

Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/663e1588-1326-11dd-8d91-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1