Report on the British Group at Chinaplas 2013

From May 20 to 23, 2013 in Guangzhou (Southern China’s largest city with a population of nearly 13 million)  the BPF once again organized the British Pavilion at Chinaplas. Now in its 27th year Chinaplas has grown with each edition and is now firmly established as the world’s largest annual plastics event. The show attracted 2,972 exhibitors from 36 countries, compared to 2,729 in 2012 in Shanghai and 2,435 in 2011 in Guangzhou. The show also attracted a record number of visitors:

Year	Venue	Visitors
2001	Guangzhou	31,000
2002	Shanghai	55,000
2003	Beijing	20,000
2004	Shanghai	57,751
2005	Guangzhou	52,009
2006	Shanghai	57,812
2007	Guangzhou	61,621
2008	Shanghai	72,161
2009	Guangzhou	69,298
2010	Shanghai	81,435
2011	Guangzhou	94,084
2012	Shanghai	109,858
2013	Guangzhou	114,103

The British Pavilion was made up of 10 companies with a further 4 British companies exhibiting independently. Many of the British companies who exhibited did so with the support of Grants from UK Trade and Investment.  The companies who exhibited as part of the British Pavilion were:

Aerogen	Ashe Converting Equipment	Ceramicx	Environmental Recycling Technologies
Listgrove	Meech International	Nextool	Sevenseas International
	Trans XL	Techne

In total there were 15 national pavilions in 2013 (compared to 9 in 2012) which were Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, USA. The show proved to be a major success for all UK companies with busy days throughout the show (although the last day was, as expected, quite) and exhibitors raving about the exceptionally high quality of visitors to the stands.  The breakdown of visitors per day is shown below:

Date	Visitors	Overseas Visitors
May 20	34,507	10,007 (29.00%)
May 21	40,224	8,677 (21.57%)
May 22	28,507	8,276 (29.03%)
May 23	10,865	3,810 (35.07%)
Total	114,103	30,770 (26.97%)

Despite increased financial support from UK Trade and Investment a number of exhibitors commented on the size of the British participation compared to that of other European Countries.  The Germans for example had 160 exhibitors spread over 4,197sqm and the Italians had 61 companies over 1,511 sqm this compared with the British participation of 14 companies covering a total of 565sqm.

"TransXL have attended Chinaplas in Guangzhou for the 2nd time in 3 years. China and SE Asia continues to be a growth market for second hand extrusion and thermoforming machinery, despite the locally made new Chinese machinery. We are already exporting to the region, so it was a great opportunity to meet with existing customers, and a lot of new faces, and new opportunities.  No doubt we will be signing up to participate in the 2014 show in Shanghai on the strength of the enquiries from the show last month." Jon Smith Sales Director TransXL

"The ChinaPlas 2013 exhibition in Guangzhou was a great success for Environmental Recycling Technologies.  Our theme of a 'solution to mixed plastic waste' struck a chord with both exhibitors and attendees of the show and has resulted in a number of very interesting enquires for the company." Roger Baynham Managing Director Environmental Recycling Technologies

The next edition of CHINAPLAS is scheduled for April 23-26, 2014 in Shanghai and no doubt will once again break all records in terms of numbers of both visitors and exhibitors.  With the increased level of grant support from UKTI (now worth up to £3,000) it would be great to see even more British companies taking part in this incredibly important show!!

Visitors to the BPF Stand where 100’s of copies of the BPFs Buyers Guides (promoting members products and services) were distributed		Visitors arrive on the opening day of the show
Some of the representatives of the companies making up the British Group at Chinaplas		Photo of the BPF’s Philip Law meeting Stanley Chu, Chairman of Adsale (the show organizer) as featured in the show daily