This year’s IFAT CHINA has certainly proved to be one of the most important and most comprehensive trade fairs for the environmental industry in Asia, with more exhibitors, a significant increase of Chinese exhibitors, greater exhibition space and more visitors. The third International Trade Fair for Water, Sewage, Refuse, Recycling and Natural Energy Sources attracted 11,200 trade visitors from 72 countries even though the event had been shortened from four to three days. This means an increase of 15% compared to the previous event. The top five international visiting countries were Japan, Thailand, Korea, Germany and Vietnam.
“IFAT CHINA 2008 was very good in terms of the quality and the variety of the attendees. It is an international trade fair with a wide variety of visitors,” said Tim Mc Dougle, sales and marketing director of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies from France, Shanghai branch. Yanqing Chang, vice general manager of Tianjin Baili Sun Environmental Protection Equipment Co., Ltd. in China, added: “IFAT CHINA is a very international exhibition. This year we had more visitors than during the previous two shows and we were frankly out of breath talking to all the visitors.”
At IFAT CHINA 2008, the demand for exhibition space was stronger than ever and grew by 50%. All in all, 362 companies from 25 countries presented their new products and services from September 23 to 25 in the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC). In comparison to the last IFAT CHINA in 2006, this is an increase of 27% with regard to exhibitor numbers. The top five exhibiting countries were China, Germany, Korea, the US and Italy. Additionally, IFAT CHINA featured five joint participations from Austria, Germany, United Kingdom, Korea and Switzerland.
Further particularly good news was the considerable increase in the number of Chinese exhibitors by more than 90% to 179, compared to 94 exhibitors at IFAT CHINA 2006. “The enormous participation of Chinese exhibitors and the fantastic feedback of our international exhibitors show in an impressive manner that IFAT CHINA has definitely established itself as the major business platform for environmental solutions and technologies in Asia,” said Eugen Egetenmeir, deputy managing director of Messe Muenchen Intl.
Additional information is available at www.ifat-china.com
Source: Messe München International
