Written by Zheng Li; Photographed by Xu Jiechen

Shanghai International Industry Fair (hereinafter referred to as "Industry Fair") has been held successfully for seven times. In accordance with Business Letter No.98, 2005 of Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China on November 8, 2005 and approved by the State Council, "Shanghai International Industry Fair" was renamed to "China International Industry Fair" in 2006.
After being renamed, the Industry Fair will follow The Proposal of the CPC Central Committee for Formulating the 11th Five-Year Plan of the National Economic and Social Development and borrow from the experience of Hanoverian Industry Fair. Within the comprehensive framework of the fair, great efforts must be made to foster the incubation of the specialized exhibition, quicken expansion of transaction functions of product, technology and property rights, and continue exerting integrated functions of exposition, award decision and forum. The Industry Fair will further improve Shanghai's progress in internationalization, quicken its pace of marketing, and do its best to construct a platform for goods trading, technology trading, property rights transaction, and scientific and technological innovation. It made itself into a significant carrier of China's development of modern equipment manufacturing. In that way, China will be enabled to get acquainted with other countries of the globe.

Serving the Whole Country at a Higher Level

At the 7th Industry Fair in 2005, other than Shanghai enterprises, those from 23 different provinces, cities, autonomous regions and four cities with independent budgetary status in the State participated in that Fair. The Beijing, Anhui, Shenzhen, Guizhou and Heilongjiang governments even organized their own special groups to take part in that event. The number of participating enterprises outside Shanghai amounted to 592, representing 45.33% of the total; the net area of exhibition was 13540m2, 39.61% of the total; the number of hi-tech enterprises from the northeast and west China totaled 37 with an exhibition net area of 1290 m2, representing 9.53% of the area occupied by external enterprises. Participating enterprises also included many leading ones in China.
In 2006, the Industry Fair will continue to enjoy direct support and guidance from the Shanghai Municipal People's Government, and get support and guidance from the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Information Industry, Ministry of Education, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and China Council for the Promotion of International Trade for a development of Industry Fair work at a nationwide level. As a national industry fair, it also can get more national resources from the sponsor, including policies and information on accelerating the development of the equipment industry. Shanghai World Expo (Group) Co., Ltd, as the organizer of the Industry Fair, will be indebted to exerting the influence of that event under the instruction of the sponsor and to attract more enterprises to participate in the fair. It will continue cooperating with China Machinery Industry Federation, and at the same time, choose some national associations to establish cooperation relationships for specialized exhibitions, according to real requirements.

An Increased Level of Internationalization

The number of exhibition booths of overseas enterprises at the Industry Fair was increased from around 50 at the first fair to 930 at the seventh. Overseas participant enterprises came from over 20 countries and regions including the USA, Germany, Britain, France, Holland, Canada, Russia, Switzerland, Israel, Russia, Japan, Korea, Italy, Singapore, and Malaysia, among which nearly all countries and regions such as Japan, Korea, Singapore and Russia organized groups. Some of the world's top 500 enterprises such as ABB, Siemens, Microsoft, GE, IBM, Alcatel, and Shanghai Bell also participated in that fair. The number of overseas visitors increased to 12,700 at the seventh fair, far outnumbering those 3,000 + people in the first fair. Among the forum lecturers, nearly 60% are international personnel from famous international organizations, world-known MNCs, research institutes, as well as colleges and universities. The proportion of foreign experts in the experts group increased considerably.
In 2006, the Industry Fair will make the best of business setups in the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China to all over the world to carry out wider publicity. It will bring more advantages of the commissions and offices concerned into play, and continue to focus on attracting Fortune 500 companies, industry leading enterprises and large purchasing groups. The organizer will conduct all-round cooperation with more international associations for the purpose of reaching cooperation agreements with external associations and groups.

Further Strengthening Technical Innovations

The Industry Fair has attached importance to the introduction to high-tech products researched and manufactured by world's top 500 enterprises, famous MNCs, domestic noted enterprises and research institutes, which could well represent world advanced level in technology.
Exhibiting scientific and technical results at the Industry Fair can be regarded as an exercise of participants to respond to the sub-theme of Shanghai World Expo: "City Sci-Tech Innovation". More importantly, sci-tech innovation is depicted as the characteristic of the Industry Fair. No matter how many specialized exhibitions are set up for the yearly Industry Fair, there has always been Sci-Tech Innovation Exhibition which exhibits high-tech achievements of colleges and universities, sci-tech systems, enterprises, and other industrial entities. Every year the Industry Fair will find products with high technical content for complete publicity and recommendation. The Industry Fair will give awards to outstanding products to encourage innovation and enthusiasm in enterprises, and make efforts to advocate and show products with their own intellectual property rights.
As for the Industry Fair 2006, the host will take the sub-theme of the Shanghai World Expo "City Sci-Tech Innovation" as a guiding ideology, and further strengthen the spirit of sci-tech innovation so as to brighten the feature of sci-tech innovation in that fair.

Picture Description:
1. Exterior of the 7th Industry Fair hall
2. "Sci-Tech World Expo" section in No.1 Hall of the 7th Industry Fair
3. Shanghai World Expo flag, which has been carried by Shenzhou VI (Divine Vessel), was exhibited at the Industry Fair
4. Interested visitors at the Industry Fair
5. Anti-riot robot at the 7th Industry Fair
6. Concept car model at the Industry Fair
7. Siemens TIA
8. Interior of the 7th Industry Fair hall