Commodities Exhibition of Latin American and Central Eastern European Countries (ICE 2007), which is organized by the Trade Development Bureau of MOFCOM, P. R. China, is held from Nov 22 to 24 in Beijing. It aims at expanding and strengthening China’s economic and trade cooperation with Latin American and Central Eastern European Regions and boosting the balanced and healthy development of trade in the above regions. The Assistant Minister of Chinese MOFCOM Fu Ziying and Ecuador President Rafael Correa were present in the exhibition. 　　
While addressing in the opening ceremony, Fu Ziying said that the Chinese government had attached great importance to the exchanges and cooperation with Latin American and Central Eastern European countries. In recent years, the economic and trade cooperation develops rapidly. In 2006, the trade volumes of China with Latin American and Central Eastern European Countries have topped USD70billion and USD20billion respectively. And the mutual investments are increasingly active involving in machinery, foods,medicine, chemicals, household appliances and other fields. 　　
Fu Ziying said China and Latin America, Central and Eastern European countries had respective strengths with strong complementarity. And there are broad prospects for cooperation. The Latin American region is vast in territory and rich in resources and the Central Eastern European countries have a better industrial foundation. Meanwhile, China is increasingly opening its market and perfecting the economic and trade environments. We hope that all sides strive together to further develop cooperation fields. As one of important measures which the Chinese government have taken to expand importing from Latin American and Central Eastern European countries, the ICE 2007 will surely help the enterprises from these countries to know and develop the Chinese market and accelerate the bilateral economic and trade relations.
The fair converges many enterprises and exhibits. the exhibition has attracted about 150 enterprises from 16 countries in Latin American and Central Eastern Europe, namely Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Macedonia, Georgia. The exhibition will offer a good opportunity to see different kinds of unique foods of Latin American and Central Eastern European features, such as Mexico's cactus; Peru's corn, rice, sugar cane; natural yeast, organic coffee beans and coffee powder of Colombia, the Amazon guava, green papaya and other tropical fruits as well as unique sauce made of fruit; the Brazilian nectar, tropical fruit juice and pulp, soybeans, and other food and cash crops; the wheat, corn, soybeans, sorghum of Argentine, Hungary's native products, meat, wine, fruit and vegetables canned products, bread and biscuits; Ecuador's banana; Uruguay's sea fish, rice, soybeans, cocoa; the Romanian plum, cherry and wine; Croatia's wine, mineral water, fruit juices and other beverages. Most of the above mentioned foods are rarely seen in China.
To create better trading condition for the participating enterprises of Latin American and Eastern European countries, the Exhibition Committee organized the large-scale Chinese trade enterprises, chain supermarkets, importers, traders and other professional buyers to attend the exhibition. The exhibition got great support from the governments and organizations in Latin American and Central Eastern European countries. It’s known that the related governmental organs and commercial institutions of Argentina, Romania, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, Peru, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Colombia and Macedonia have attached great importance to the ICE 2007 and organize their enterprises to attend the exhibition in China.(Source: MOFCOM)