Industry fair celebrates innovation
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The China International Industry Fair, opening yesterday in Shanghai, provided insights into the country's program to boost technological innovation and energy efficiency in an effort to pursue sustainable economic growth.
From models of China's homegrown aircraft, to small robots and giant machine tools, exhibitors from home and abroad are showing the latest developments in equipment manufacturing at the Shanghai New International Expo Center in Pudong.
The global financial crisis did not dampen exhibitors' enthusiasm: The number of booths rented this year increased 5.7 percent from the last fair, organizers said. Altogether, 1,869 companies are taking part in the five-day show, more than a quarter of them from overseas.
"This year's event has become a grand gathering of exhibitors and professional buyers, equipment manufacturing firms, new and high technologies as well as market information," Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng said in an opening speech.
Liu Tienan, deputy chief of the National Development and Reform Commission, said the event is a vivid demonstration that the central government's plan to rejuvenate the equipment manufacturing industry is working. Innovation was the most often-heard word on the floor of the industry fair.
"Innovation is the key driver of industrialization," Richard Hausmann, Northeast Asia chief operating officer of the German industrial conglomerate Siemens AG, told a forum during the fair. "Only the most innovative companies will be the final winners of long-run industrialization."
The Shanghai government has said it will offer tax incentives and subsidies to local companies winning awards for their products in this year's event to encourage innovation and speed up commercialization.
Fan Gang, director of the National Economic Research Institute, said Chinese companies should take a global perspective as the domestic market, though big, is not enough to satisfy national employment requirements.
"Companies should focus on their expertise," Fan also told the forum, titled "The New Path of China's Industrialization."
"In this era, competition is fierce in almost every industry so you must focus on one field," Fan said.
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