ILOILO City – The 5th Quanzhou Maritime Silk international Expo has left a big impression on the city’s delegates to the international confab, said Lea Lara, executive director of the Iloilo Business Club (IBC).
The event took place at Shi-Shi, a highly developed part of Quanzhou, which boasts a strong textile industry. Iloilo’s delegates were personally taken care of by Shi Shi’s government officials, and were invited to several important events during their stay.
“We were really taken care of. Halos lahat nga needs namon, taken care of. Very warm gid,” Lara said.
Lara explained that Iloilo was the only Philippine local government unit to participate in the 5th Quanzhou Maritime Silk International Expo, a convention that attracts attendees from all over the world.
During the expo, Iloilo’s exhibitors were given two booths. The first booth featured Ilonggo foods, while the larger booth featured clothes, bags, shoes, fabrics, and other locally-made items. Lara related that the other exhibitors were interested in what Iloilo exhibitors had to offer.
“The interest was really high. It was a unique experience for me,” Lara said.
However, despite their success, Lara also admits the language barrier was a bit of a “hindrance” during their stay.
“Ang pinaka-hindrance namon there was hindi gid ya English speaking ang Chinese nationals,” Lara said. “Good thing may interpreter kami, pero mabatyagan mo gid ang barrier. So it would have been better kung maka-speak native Chinese ang amon exhibitors. So that’s one very big difficult difficulty that we have.”
“Second, the way things are done there. They do cashless transactions. They have this system ang tawag QR codes. They pay everything through QR codes. But you can only be given a QR code or an account on WeChat [a popular cashless payment app] if you have a Chinese bank account,” she added.
These two problems aside, Lara reports that the whole Iloilo delegation was pleased with how the visit turned out, and that Quanzhou and Shi Shi may even visit Iloilo in the months to come to explore further commercial and economic partnerships./PN
