China Glass Soaring Against the Wind

All sectors including the glass industry have been influenced by the current global financial crisis. In such a winter-like marketing environment, China Glass is not only active and vigorous itself, but also has brought to the whole industry a scent of spring. Organized by the Chinese Ceramic Society, co-organized by the Shanghai Ceramic Society and run by the Beijing Zhonggui Exhibition Co., Ltd., the 20th China International Glass Industrial Technical Exhibition (China Glass 2009) will be held at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre on 13-16 May, 2009. The exhibition area reaches 55,000 sqm and all booths were reserved as early as October 2008. Nearly 750 companies from 22 countries are registered to participate in this event.

Owing to uninterrupted innovation and development in the past two decades since its initiation in 1986, China Glass has increasingly raised its professionalization and internationalization and now has become one of the three largest international glass exhibitions in the world. It serves as a platform for trade talks and technical exchanges, which has the largest scale and greatest commercial significance in the Chinese glass industry, and has been acknowledged and received wider and wider among global glass communities. In April last year, China Glass 2008 was successfully completed in Beijing. It covered an area of 53,000 square meters and totally 736 exhibitors, including 248 foreign companies, came from 21 countries. Germany, Italy, the USA and Belgium sent their State exhibitors groups to attend the show. The event attracted 30,391 professional visitors, of which over 2622 came from 88 foreign countries.

Influenced by the global financial crisis, the Chinese glass industry is encountering temporary difficulties. However, most of the exhibitors are confident of China Glass and the leading glass companies in the world are still enthusiastic in attending this exhibition. Among them, the Italian pavilion enlarged its exhibition area by 60%, the Glasston Group will display more advanced machines to establish its leading position in the Chinese market, Bottero is quite upbeat over the China Glass show and has ordered an exhibition area of 420 sqm. The Taibo Changjiang Glass Co. Ltd. has an exhibition area even 4 times as large as that of the last event.

Although things go well in the preparatory work of China Glass 2009, the Chinese Ceramic Society, organizer of the show, is not sitting back or relaxing. They carefully analyzed the impact of the international financial crisis on the glass industry and are intensifying its preparations and corresponding service based on the good reputation and brand effect of the China Glass exhibition, as well as the rich experience of its organizing team. To this end, the Chinese Ceramic Society is adopting a measure emphasizing “raising the level of service and helping each other to tide over the difficult period”. They are taking practical steps in many aspects to improve their work. The Society sent project managers of China Glass 2009 to Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces, where glass enterprises are concentrated, and made in-situ investigations to find out thoughts and requirements of the exhibitors; they explain to them the countermeasures that the Society has taken at present so as to enhance the confidence of the exhibitors; for the sake of saving expenses of the exhibitors, the organizer discussed with the official freight forwarder, booth builder, hotel reservation and advertising agents of the exhibition, and requested them to stabilize and cut down relative prices without lowering service quality and reducing service items; the organizer is doing a great deal of work for promoting China Glass 2009 in dozens of magazines, newspapers and websites for making the exhibitors more satisfactory and attracting more visitors; based on the data about exhibitors and visitors accumulated for many years, the organizer has sent invitations to hundreds of thousands of professional visitors and companies all over the world; a special website is being developing, which enables exhibitors register through the internet. In a word, the organizer is trying their best to substantially improve the exhibition.

Mr. Jin Zhanping, general secretary of the Chinese Ceramic Society, said: “As a weathervane reflecting the development of the Chinese glass industry, China Glass 2009 is in deed facing a relatively sever situation, but the market is not always plain sailing. Peaks are always accompanied with valleys. Colder winder forebodes a closer warm spring. With the fulfillment of practical measures all countries are taking to recover their economy, the building material industry will soon go out of the doldrums and a new spring of the glass industry is approaching. We are ready to do our best to present a good exhibition and express our full confidence in the industry and the market. This is also the best repayment to our exhibitors.”

Shanghai will have beautiful spring scenery in May. The organizing team of China Glass 2009, in term of its better services and higher working efficiency, will make joint efforts with all exhibitors and visitors from the world over to receive the spring of the glass exhibition.