China International Fair for Investment and Trade (CIFIT) is a professional trade and investment promotional event aimed at facilitating trade and investment opportunities for international businesses. This is PTI China’s third year participating in CIFIT, using the platform to share information on the Pacific’s investment environment, policies, projects, and to showcase export-ready products from the Forum Island Countries to potential buyers and distributors at the show.  

This year, the PTI China stand launched two brand-new product lines from two companies in the Pacific. Fitsui, a new mineral water brand from Fiji, is a physiotherapy-grade natural mineral water and has been receiving great reviews on its quality. The water brand is now distributed in 16 provinces that are amongst the highest provinces in domestic economic ranking in China, including the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the Bohai Rim and the Yangtze River Economic Zone. The water is sourced from Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu, where the company owns significant areas of privatised land, and it plans to gradually expand their business in the future as market demands for its water increases.

Samoa Skyline Noni Company also launched a new product at the PTI China stand. After a year working on a diversification plan for their product, to respond to market needs following a joint market test with PTI China at the 2020 CIFIT show, Samoa Skyline was ready to showcase and launch its brand-new Noni tea product.

According to Samoa Skyline’s Marketing Director, “It was important that we paid attention to consumer taste preferences for acceptance of the product. China is traditionally a tea-drinking society, so we wanted to trial a Noni tea product to see if consumers would receive the taste well!” The responses have been very positive; hence our decision to go to market with this new product line at the show.”

PTI China worked closely with the two Pacific companies in promoting and launching their new products in the market.

According to PTI China Trade Commissioner Mona Mato, “Product diversification is always key to responding to consumer demands and preferences, and we at PTI China are pleased to be a part of their journey. Earlier this year we collaborated with Skyline at the SIAL show in Shanghai to test the market with the new Noni tea, and the overwhelming response from consumers has led to the launch of the tea at CIFIT this year. These are key outcomes in the delivery of our support service to Pacific businesses, and we will continue to look out for new products that come through from the Pacific and identify ideal platforms to showcase these.”

The event organisers from the Xiamen Foreign Affairs Office continues to recognise the Pacific Islands as a region of immense resources, and over the last 20 years they have established very close relations with Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands. The foundation of these historic relationships creates the opportunity for us to further extend the connection and promote investment and trade exchanges and cooperation between China and the rest of the Blue Pacific region to drive and achieve impactful trade and investment outcomes.