Chinese buyers looking to purchase international products that cater to the evolving needs of consumers said the sixth China International Import Expo, which concluded in Shanghai last week, served as a one-stop destination for the latest and best products due to the expo's global display and procurement platform.

Nearly 400,000 industrial buyers registered for the sixth CIIE this year to shop from 3,400 exhibitors without having to step outside the country. The exhibitors included a record 289 Fortune 500 companies and leading enterprises in their respective industries.

"Nowadays, Chinese consumers prefer high-quality and shareable experiences in every corner of their homes that please both body and soul. I'm here at the CIIE, looking for more unique, wonderful home possibilities," said Chen Yi'an, whose company in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, imports items for household use.

"I also believe that when buyers from Shanghai and its neighboring provinces Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui come together to the CIIE for purchasing, it will help build a more mature supply chain in the Yangtze River Delta region," Chen, whose firm is one of the 42,000 buyers from the province, added.

The Large Retail Purchaser Alliance of the Shanghai trading group at the CIIE, which has 33 member companies, reached preliminary agreements for 55 procurement projects totaling 3.5 billion yuan ($480 million), according to Bailian Group, the chair unit of the alliance.

"The CIIE enhances competition between domestic and foreign enterprises as well as that among foreign enterprises, which will promote the transformation of the economy from general imports to high-quality imports," said Luo Changyuan, a professor at the School of Economics at Fudan University.

The CIIE platform also helps multinational companies as well as local institutions and businesses to further connect and integrate their respective resources and form partnerships.

US-based pharmaceutical company MSD and Peking University inked an agreement at the CIIE to establish the PKU-MSD Joint Lab.

Playing up their respective R&D and academic strengths, the lab, focusing on infectious diseases prevention and control technologies, will carry out long-term projects in technological innovation regarding public health and real-world research in key disease areas.

"By integrating our advantages, I believe such cooperation will accelerate the efficiency of producing sci-tech innovation results and contribute to constructing a more complete public health system," said Xiao Yuan, deputy director of the Peking University Health Science Center.

Roche and seven domestic partners, including United Family Healthcare, medicine express providers Meituan and Dingdang, and online diagnosis and treatment platform WeDoctor, reached a collaboration agreement at the CIIE in the fields of flu prevention and control among children and medicine and digitalization, which aims to help reduce disease burdens on society during the flu season.