THE three main exhibition venues in Shenzhen hosted a total of 195 events last year and attracted more than 9.8 million visitors, according to figures recently released by the city’s commerce bureau. Exhibitions related to industries covered by Shenzhen’s “20+8” industrial initiatives turned out to be very popular, attracting 65,000 exhibitors and 8.2 million attendees. In June 2022, Shenzhen introduced the “20+8” package of industrial policies to cultivate and develop industries with huge growth potentials, in a bid to improve the city’s industrial landscape and help local manufacturers climb up the value chain. According to the blueprint, the city will focus on fostering 20 strategic emerging industry sectors led by advanced manufacturing, new materials and artificial intelligence. At the same time, it will strategically invest in eight emerging but promising industries. According to the commerce bureau, last year, Shenzhen achieved its best historical results in terms of the number of exhibitions, exhibition scale, exhibitors, visitors, new product releases and transactions conducted during the exhibitions. An official at the commerce bureau said that national and specialty industry exhibitions became the highlights of the exhibitions held in the city last year. In 2023, the exhibitions were focused on industries with strong growth potentials such as new energy vehicles and digital energy, giving prominence to national-level exhibitions such as the China hi-tech fair, cultural industries expo and fishery expo, and giving support to 12 newly cultivated expos such as international medical devices exhibition and digital energy exhibition. The inaugural digital energy and international medical devices exhibitions achieved great success, luring 945 exhibitors from more than 100 countries and regions and pioneering the “one exhibition, two locations” format of holding the exhibitions simultaneously in Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The 25th China hi-tech fair covered an exhibition area of 500,000 square meters, attracting delegations from 105 countries and regions and more than 4,000 exhibitors — the largest scale and the highest number of participating countries and regions in its history. The “20+8” industrial exhibitions became platforms for promoting technological innovation and development. Local technological innovation exhibitions such as the international optoelectronic expo, security expo and industrial design expo have grown into industry-leading events. Official data showed that in 2023, there were more than 120 exhibitions directly related to new and future industries, covering an exhibition area of more than 8 million square meters. Throughout the year, more than 100,000 new products, technologies and solutions were exhibited at more than 4,000 industry exchange, negotiation, and project roadshow events, attracting more than 65,000 exhibiting companies and more than 8.2 million attendees, marking a 90% and 101% increase, respectively, compared with 2022. (Yang Yunfei) | 