(Yicai Global) July 30 -- Chinese mega-retailer Suning Holdings Group plans to buy wares from exhibitors at the First China International Import Expo, European consumer goods above all, and will spend CNY10 billion (USD1.5 billion) over three years to purchase these exotic items.

"Suning will be both an exhibitor and a procurer at this year's CIIE," said a source with the company, which is based in Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu province.

The mammoth reseller will target consumer goods and introduce masses of overseas products that have scarcely reached Chinese consumers before. "Suning will purchase at least 1,000 kinds of imported commodities at CIIE that have never sold on the Chinese market, and will distribute them via its e-commerce platforms," the source added.

Aside from fast-moving consumer goods, European brands on its shopping list also encompass light luxuries, garments and accessories, health care products, and housewares and furnishings.

These expensive mid-to-high-end products are not the only types of imports Suning is set to introduce through the expo, however. Some are cheaper even than their made-in-China counterparts, e.g. eastern European two-liter canola oil is only priced at CNY9.9 (USD1.47), while in China it is around CNY20-30.

Famous brands Suning has acquired abroad will also come to exhibit at the CIIE, which is slated to run in Shanghai and Beijing simultaneously from November 5 to 10.

For example, LAOX, a Japanese old-brand home appliances hypermarket Suning gobbled up between 2009 and 2011 will demonstrate to the event its self-developed app that combines catering, traffic, travel, shopping and hotel services, and will also grandstand its lineup of quality Japanese goods to major Chinese e-commerce platforms, including Suning and Alibaba Group Holding's Tmall.Com, which bills itself as "the largest business-to-consumer (B2C) retail platform in Asia enabling businesses to sell directly to millions of consumers throughout China."

Famous Italian soccer club Internazionale Milano will also come into the limelight as a Suning unit during the CIIE and pitch its juvenile training models to China's young soccer fans. The company's Suning Sports unit bought a 70 percent stake in Internazionale Milano in 2016 for EUR270 million (USD315 million).

Suning is one of the few retail heavyweights in China that vies for market share both online and offline. The company runs around 5,000 stores and other outlets of various kinds nationwide.

The company thus looks set to give Europe's consumer producers another shot in the arm after US President Donald Trump reached a tentative deal with the EU to lift all tariffs on two-way trade last week.

Editor: Ben Armour