Shanghai Becomes China's Leading Exhibitor

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, October 02, 2002

Shanghai Becomes China's Leading Exhibitor

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The seven-day National Day holiday could be named a housing exhibition festival for the people of Shanghai, as China's largest metropolis has planned to hold over 10 housing exhibitions during the vacation.

On the exhibition list are the first show of villas in the city and apartment buildings, which would draw group after group of local residents who are in urgent need to buy new flats since their existing ones would be pulled down to give way to new roads or lawns scheduled by city planners.

The glomerate housing exhibitions epitomize Shanghai city's exhibition industry.

The latest statistics available show that Shanghai has given 5.5 exhibits per week this year, making it one of the busiest exhibition cities around the country.

Shanghai has held a total of 144 exhibitions during the January-June period this year, including expos of Asian information technology, international furniture, construction materials, and cartoons.

Messe Frankfurt, the third exhibition giant in the world, set up its branch in Shanghai this April. Before that, two other exhibition firms based in Hanover of Germany and Milan of Italy have already established their own branches in Shanghai.

Shanghai's new international exhibition center went into operation last year, extending total display space of the municipality to 150,000 square meters and facilitating hosting big international exhibitions.

Shanghai now has five exhibition centers and more than 100 companies engaged in the exhibition business, which are manned with over 4,000 employees.

The five exhibition centers had held a total of 595 exhibitions from January 2000 to July this year, with an annual growth rate ofover 20 percent.

Shanghai, with one of the fastest growing economies in China, has maintained a double-digit economic growth rate for 10 consecutive years. Nearly 300 firms of the world's Top 500 have opened offices or branches in Shanghai.

Shanghai's exhibition business would skyrocket against this backdrop, said experts.

Exhibition benefits aviation, tourism, commerce, catering service, and hotel business. Authentic statistics indicate that the international exhibition industry boasts a profit rate of more than 25 percent.

Chen Xianjin, general manager of Shanghai Exhibition Center, acknowledged that every 1,000 sq m of the exhibition space mean almost 100 job opportunities.

Shanghai could become a super world-class exhibition center if it would acquire the right to hold the 2010 World Expo.

It was learned that Shanghai municipality holds approximately the same number of exhibitions as Germany does a year. Nevertheless, it still needs to further improve its scale and quality and increase the amount of its profits generated from exhibitions.

"Shanghai's international exhibition industry will catch the world's standards in term of management system, exhibition scale, related facilities, and the number of permanent expo centers," noted Zhu Xiaoming, director of the Shanghai Municipal Foreign Economic and Trade Committee, "Shanghai should formulate a set of regulations and self-disciplinary system for the exhibition business to accord with the international norms as soon as possible."

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