News – to come for
News – to come for example to Berlin, to do branding here, to do branding to the western customers, distribution and media. Where will the event be held? We have a very modern exhibition centre in the city of Shenzhen and our approach is conservative. We don’t plan for the first year on to have a show as big as the IFA. The idea is to create a very efficient show for the brands. The first show will have floor space of 30,000 square metres – which is one sixth of IFA. This is an appropriate size for the start, and then we are convinced if we can get a grip on the Chinese market with this new show, that we will rise very quickly. You’ve been working on this project for some time. What was the hardest thing in getting this off the ground? There have been many challenges. We’ve been working on this for five or six years, closely monitoring the market. There are many trade shows for electronics in China, but we realised that none of these electronics shows was serving the market in the “IFA way”. The second challenge was to find the right city or region for the show. We considered Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing and realised that these were very good cities, with great exhibition sites and good people. But we realised that Shenzhen and the Guangdong province was an underestimated location for international shows. Once we had decided upon the location, the idea was reinforced by the excellent support we received from the Shenzhen government, which will be a very important element in the success of the show. They helped us find the right “slot” in the hectic schedule of trade shows, as they realised that when we succeed with an IFA branded show, then it will be a jewel for all of China. Welcome to Shenzhen! At this week’s press conference announcing the launching of a new Messe Berlin backed trade show in Shenzhen, Guo Limin, Director General, Economy, Trade and Information Commission of Shenzhen Municipality outlined the key advantages of the southern Chinese destination as a location for this new trade event. Following are key extracts from his speech: As a Special Economic Zone, Shenzhen is a highly open economy. We have trade relations with more than 200 countries and regions in the world. We are a global distributing center for mechanical, electrical, ICT and hi-tech products, placing us at the top ranking of China’s medium and big cities in merchandise import and export. Businesses from 135 countries and regions, including 193 of the Fortune Global 500 Companies, have made their investment in Shenzhen. Along the way of Shenzhen’s development into an international city, Germany, as China’s biggest trading partner in the European Union, has also always been our important partner. In 2014, Shenzhen’s foreign trade with Germany reached 8.16 billion US dollars. German companies have registered 150 projects Berlin Senator Cornelia Yzer in Shenzhen, bringing more than 261 million US dollars of investment. Meanwhile, 25 Shenzhen companies, including Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, and TOPRAY Solar, have chosen to invest in Germany. IFA will help Shenzhen bring up the City’s convention and exhibition profession to a newer, higher international level Shenzhen is an important global cluster and distributing center of electrical and ICT products, and, like Berlin, is a City of Design rated by the Creative Cities Network. We are confident that, with our contacts getting more frequent and our mutual understanding and trust getting stronger and deeper, our cooperation will become so profound as to benefit our common development and prosperity. Today, that the IFA Show is coming to Shenzhen next year is a great step towards closer partnership between Shenzhen and Berlin. IFA has a great reputation and is highly influential in the consumer electronics industry. With Shenzhen’s convenient transportation infrastructure, excellent geographical location and wonderful industrial lay-out, we have every reason to believe that IFA’s landing in Shenzhen will enable it carry ever greater professional influence in China as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, IFA will help Shenzhen bring up the City’s convention and exhibition profession to a newer, higher international level. Shenzhen will actively, continuously assist IFA with its landing in our city and support this project as much as possible within the boundaries of our laws and policies. BERLIN SENATOR YSER HAILS AGREEMENT AS MAJOR STEP FORWARD IN RELATIONS Berlin Senator Cornelia Yzer, Berlin's senator for economics, technology and research welcomed the announcement: Messe Berlin is the organiser of world leading trade fairs and has a great deal of expertise in the Asian market, so we appreciate that they are bringing a part of Berlin to China. There is already a strong relationship between China and Berlin. We have had numerous investments from Chinese companies in Berlin technology parks in the past couple of months. We have the chamber of commerce from China in Berlin Guo Limin Director General, Economy, Trade and Information Commission of Shenzhen Municipality now. The two leading Chinese banks have opened up offices here. So there is a growing link, and IFA will definitely strengthen the relationship. As IFA is the place where new consumer electronic devices are shown and where we discuss the trends of how we may want to live tomorrow, it’s perfect to have this strong hub in Europe with Berlin, and a strong hub in the Asian market.” While one goal is of course to export more products to Asia, more importantly the question is whether we can create win-win situations by bringing together expertise from both regions. www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Wednesday 9 th September 2015 7
