Fairs as a trade platform

SPS – Indus­tri­al Automa­tion Fair Guangzhou and Asi­amold – Guangzhou Inter­na­tion­al Mould & Die Exhi­bi­tion, held con­cur­rent­ly from 4 ‒ 6 March at the Chi­na Import and Export Fair Com­plex in Guangzhou, end­ed with anoth­er record atten­dance, despite a Sun­day open­ing. The two fairs suc­ceed­ed in host­ing 896 exhibitors and wel­com­ing 72,068 pro­fes­sion­al buy­ers, includ­ing 231 buy­er del­e­ga­tions. The fairs reaf­firmed their posi­tion as a crit­i­cal trade plat­form for both the indus­tri­al automa­tion and the mould, die cast­ing and addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing mar­kets in China.
Advanced indus­tri­al auto­mat­ed machines cer­tain­ly caught the eye of fair­go­ers who watched atten­tive­ly as exhibitors car­ried out prod­uct demon­stra­tions. From vac­u­um suc­tion lift­ing devices to a dizzy­ing array of rapid robot­ic arms, the machines from Halls 2.1 to 5.1 were high tech and pro­fes­sion­al. A real buzz in the atmos­phere was also felt in Hall 1.1 as a wide array of 3D print­ers from domes­tic Chi­nese brands as well as inter­na­tion­al pow­er­hous­es show­cased the lat­est capa­bil­i­ties of this excit­ing devel­op­ing technology.

Broad concurrent event programmes present unique insights into future developments within the industries

Con­cur­rent event pro­grammes were organ­ised in addi­tion to the exhibits. A total of 80 talks were deliv­ered by some of the lead­ing indus­try play­ers and aca­d­e­mics from Chi­na and around the world. Stand­out sem­i­nars this year includ­ed the Auto­mo­bile Light­weight Prod­uct and Tech­nol­o­gy Sum­mit which made its debut at Asi­amold, while the Glob­al Review on Indus­tri­al Digi­tised Trans­for­ma­tion sem­i­nar was well attend­ed by vis­i­tors to SPS – Indus­tri­al Automa­tion Fair Guangzhou. The Japan Elec­tri­cal Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion pre­sent­ed a very inter­est­ing talk on man­u­fac­tur­ing inno­va­tions with IoT that res­onat­ed well with attendees.

Key figures at a glance

Exhibitors: 896 (2017: 795), a 12.7% increase
Exhi­bi­tion space: 60,000sqm (2017: 60,000sqm)
Vis­i­tors: 72,068 (2017: 64,077), a 12.5% increase
A detailed exhi­bi­tion analy­sis includ­ing fur­ther results from SPS ‒ Indus­tri­al Automa­tion Fair Guangzhou and Asi­amold – Guangzhou Inter­na­tion­al Mould & Die Exhi­bi­tion will be avail­able lat­er in the month. Next year’s fairs will be held on 10 ‒ 12 March 2019.