Going abroad to participate in exhibitions is one of the effective ways to promote enterprises to “go global”, enhance the competitiveness of Chinese goods and international market share, and provide support for the development of China’s foreign trade.
China’s exhibition industry began in the 1950s. At that time, only the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade represented the country to organize exhibitions abroad. It was an exhibition abroad under the planned economic model. In the early days, my country could only export resource-intensive products such as oil and coal. Later, it gradually moved towards industrial products. my country’s export products also expanded to machinery, mobile phone products, home appliances, automobiles and other products. The exhibition market also developed accordingly. Overseas exhibitions really entered the market in about the 1990s, and then developed rapidly in the following ten years.
With the continuous deepening of economic globalization, the connection and communication between different countries and different enterprises have become closer, and international trade and cross-border cooperation have developed rapidly. As part of trade services, overseas exhibitions have also continued to develop. With the strong support of relevant national and local policies, my country’s export enterprises have become more and more enthusiastic about participating in foreign exhibitions and using exhibitions to expand foreign exchanges. Whether in exhibitions in developed countries in Europe and the United States or in exhibitions in developing countries, a large number of Chinese companies can be seen. In 2013, China surpassed the United States for the first time to rank first in global goods trade, becoming the world’s largest goods trading country, which is another milestone, and the participation in the exhibition has played an indispensable role.
In many world-renowned exhibitions, China is the largest exhibition group of overseas exhibitors. For example, among the 1,428 overseas exhibitors at the world’s largest consumer electronics and home electronics exhibition, the International Consumer Electronics Show (IFA) in Berlin, Germany, there are more than 700 Chinese companies, accounting for half of the proportion (auma, 2016); among the 1,670 overseas exhibitors at the world’s largest leisure and garden products exhibition, the International Sporting Goods, Camping Equipment and Garden Life Fair (spoga+gala) in Cologne, Germany, there are more than 500 Chinese companies, accounting for nearly 1/3 (auma, 2016); among the 2,627 overseas exhibitors at the world’s largest home textile products exhibition, the International Home and Commercial Textiles Exhibition (heimtextil) in Frankfurt, Germany, there are more than 500 Chinese companies, accounting for 1/5 (auma, 2017).
Every year, Chinese companies participate in thousands of overseas exhibitions. A large number of Chinese companies go abroad to participate in exhibitions, and organization and service are indispensable. According to statistics from the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, as of November 13, 2018, there were 92 exhibition organizers in the country that implemented overseas exhibition projects after approval by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (co-signed by the Ministry of Commerce). In addition to these traditional state-owned exhibition organizations, around 2000, a large number of private exhibition companies came into being and participated in the organization and service of Chinese companies’ overseas exhibitions. Due to the lack of management organizations in this area in China, relevant data has not been fully counted. At present, my country has formed a pattern of exhibition companies with three main bodies: state-owned, Sino-foreign joint ventures, and private.