"I used to put all my focus on producing good honey and didn't think that much of marketing it," said Parhati from a bee farm in Shule County in Kashgar. "I thought that as long as my products are of good quality, clients will come to me by themselves."

But Parhati finally realized it is not the truth. "With so many competitors, we need to step out of the farm and learn more about the market," said Parhati. "That is why I am here at the fair."

"Agriculture is one of the major economic boosters in Xinjiang, while many people have no idea how to promote their products," said Li Bo, an official of Kurma Town in Maigaiti County in Kashgar. "Everybody knows fruit in Xinjiang is very sweet and delicious and we are trying to deliver more of it to the outside."

Li arranged for township government personnel to set up a booth offering free watermelon and apricots during the Kashgar fair, enticing visitors to discuss potential opportunities for cooperation.

This year, Kamira came to the Kashgar fair for the first time with her confectionary brand Haji Baba. "We are the first and only in Xinjiang to produce genuine Turkish candies," she said, "We import all the ingredients directly from Turkey." She founded Haji Baba in 2011 and is promoting the brand at the fair.

The local government revealed that agricultural product companies around Kashgar signed contracts with a combined value of 800 million yuan ($130 million) in contracts this year, a substantial increase from 600 million yuan ($98 million) in 2012.

"The agricultural product brands of Kashgar have gradually won domestic and foreign markets," said Wang Jianguo, Deputy Director of the Kashgar Rural Work Office. "Now more clients come to Kashgar for various kinds of agricultural products."

Cooperation with coast

It is Guziaili's second visit to the Kashgar fair. As the founder of a home textile brand from Urumqi, Guziaili said that the fair provides a very good opportunity to promote her brand.

"We cooperate with inland [east] China and our factory is in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province," Guziaili told Beijing Review. "I attended the China-Eurasia Expo in Urumqi last year and got a 1-million-item order from Nanjing. The Kashgar fair is more for retail and we don't expect big orders here for now, but our purpose is to get more people to know our brand and I am sure we'll get large orders in the near future."

In 2010, the city of Shenzhen and the provinces of Guangdong and Shandong were designated by the Central Government to provide development assistance to Kashgar, and have brought large numbers of business groups and development projects to the Kashgar fair.

In one example, 109 companies from Shenzhen took part in the fair, and signed 22 projects with the prefecture, with a total investment of 13.3 billion yuan ($2.17 billion) in infrastructure, park development and farm produce.

"The establishment of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Kashgar is just at its very beginning. We are working on the overall development plan and infrastructure construction. So in this fair, we are mainly targeting projects in those sectors," said Zhu Tingfeng, Director of the Administration of the Kashgar SEZ.

Yang Li, head of the Sichuan and Chongqing Chamber of Commerce in Kashgar, has been staying in Kashgar for 24 years and witnessed much business development in the past two decades. "There is still a lot of potential to be tapped here. In the last three years, with more preferential policies from the government, the future for business here is very promising."

Yang has been engaged in many businesses before, including real estate and aquatic and agricultural products sales. "The location of Kashgar is superb and the city is obviously picking up its pace in developing business with other countries in Asia."

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