Yang Mei yangmei_szdaily@163.com THE five-day 20th China Hi-Tech Fair (CHTF) saw 3,356 exhibitors showcasing 11,322 high-tech projects and attracting 563,000 visitors from 103 countries and regions. The figures were released by the organizing committee at a press conference announcing the closure of the fair at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center yesterday. The projects covered a wide range of industries, including intelligent automobiles, IoT, AI, energy conservation and environmental protection, AR/VR, Internet+, biomedicine, big data, unmanned systems, smart cities, aeronautics and space, new energy, and new materials. Each exhibition booth received 246 professional visitors per day on average, according to Yang Xiuyou, deputy secretary-general of the organizing committee and deputy secretary-general of the Shenzhen Municipal Government. A total of 41 countries and international organizations as well as 61 foreign delegations presented projects and cutting-edge technologies at the fair. Among them, a record 31 were from Belt and Road countries. This year marked the first time countries such as Chile, Cuba and Peru from the Latin America and Caribbean region attended the fair. Around 255 related activities, such as high-level forums, professional forums, salons and technical conferences, were held during the fair. The fair turned out to be fruitful for international exhibitors. They may have come to the fair with different goals and expectations, but one way or another they left with results. Although it was the first time that Matthias Stuermer, head of the Research Center for Digital Sustainability at the University of Bern, Switzerland, had attended the fair and visited China, he took care of business. He signed a deal with Malong Technologies to build the University of Bern-Malong Medical AI Joint-Lab on Friday. Stuermer said that attending the fair was a fascinating and exciting experience for him. “I was very excited to be here, to visit companies in Shenzhen and to see new ideas and products at the fair. The trip was an eye-opener for me, allowing me to see the dynamic city and innovation protection,” Stuermer said. He said in the future he will serve as a bridge to introduce Swiss entrepreneurs to Shenzhen, and China, and invite Chinese companies to open subsidiaries in Switzerland. Before coming to the fair, Marco Zúniga, executive director of the Association of Chilean Software Companies (ChileTec), expected to watch, listen and learn. However, after attending the Belt and Road Initiative Innovation Cooperation Forum held on Nov. 15, he said that he had found opportunities for cooperation between China and Chile in terms of implementing the Belt and Road Initiative in Latin America. “As a Chilean IT industry, I think in the future we can cooperate on the localization and industrialization of different business solutions for different needs of different industries in Chile,” said Zúniga, adding that he was impressed by the size and diversity of the technologies displayed at the fair and was also amazed by the development of Shenzhen as a special economic zone. Leszek Slazyk, founder and president of the Contemporary China Studies Institute in Poland has been a frequent visitor to China since 1994 and has also attended the fair several times. This year, he brought semiconductor technologies based on GaN to the fair and said he found two potential investors at the fair and things went very well. “One of our potential investors is thinking about setting up a Sino-Polish AI Industrial Partner in Shenzhen. If we close the deal, maybe next year we’ll have a special booth here as a collaboration under the label of Poland and China,” said Slazyk. Victoria Chepseba, director of Konza Technopolis Development Authority of Kenya, told the Shenzhen Daily that her goal was to seek new ideas and learn from Shenzhen in terms of building a smart city. “Kenya is developing a smart city and I’ve learned a lot in this respect. Shenzhen only has 40 years of history but it has developed rapidly. This is what we should learn,” Chepseba said, adding that she will convince the government to adopt “Shenzhen Style” to build the smart city and she will come back to the fair next year. Holly Shiv, who is from a Russian company called H.R.S. Global and attended the Buyer Sourcing Conference held on Nov. 17, said she came to the fair to look at everything, {unless}{especially if}?} it’s new. “I am here to see new products that I am interested in, like some small gadgets, and then I will bring them back to Russia and sell them on Amazon in the U.S. and Russia,” said Shiv. | 