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Original Liu Menglin Shanghai Zhongchuang research

Although the pressure of the epidemic is still present, with the joint efforts of many parties, this year's Expo is still held as scheduled. This is the first national-level industrial exhibition after the epidemic, in the general downturn in the global economy, the normal opening of China's Expo undoubtedly brought a dose of "tonic" to the manufacturing industry, but also released a strong signal to the world. This year, many well-known exhibitions and sports events around the world have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the Hannover MESse in Germany, but the China MESse is still held as scheduled. As one of the global industrial manufacturing event, China Industry Fair, since 1999 held in Shanghai since the first session (then the Shanghai Industry Fair), has gone through 22 years today. The Expo is like a wonderful industrial "fashion show", where companies from all over the world compete to show new technological achievements.

First, the past life of the Expo

When the first Shanghai Industry Fair opened in 1999, there were only more than 400 exhibitors with an exhibition area of only 15,000 square meters. Because it is an export-oriented exhibition, exhibitors are all domestic and local enterprises, of which 90% are local state-owned enterprises in Shanghai. Today, 22 years later, China MESSE has been comparable to the Hannover MESSE in Germany, with more than 2,600 exhibitors, a pavilion area of nearly 250,000 square meters, and more than 50 high-end forum meetings and exciting activities, which are expected to be visited by more than 180,000 Chinese and foreign professional visitors. It can be seen that the China Industry Fair is developing rapidly.

1, the first stage (1999-2005) : export-oriented, show the achievements of China's manufacturing industry

The Expo can be traced back to the 1991 East China Import and Export Fair in Shanghai, whose main purpose is to promote the export of textiles, clothing and crafts. The fair was held until the ninth time, when the then Shanghai leaders decided to set up an exhibition on industrial products on this basis, in order to promote the export of local machinery, electrical equipment and other mechanical and electrical products. Therefore, the first Shanghai Industry Fair was held in 1999, which was the predecessor of the China International Industry Fair.

 

Figure 1 Site of the first Shanghai Industry Fair in 1999 (photo source: Official website of the fair)

Until 2005, Shanghai Fair exhibitors are mainly local enterprises, such as the first exhibition of more than 400 exhibitors all from the domestic, and nearly 90% of Chengdu is Shanghai local state-owned enterprises; When the third event was held in 2001, the proportion of foreign investors was less than 5%.

2, the second stage (2006-2012) : through international cooperation, become a world industrial exhibition

After realizing that it could not only play the domestic card, the organizing committee quickly adjusted its thinking of organizing the exhibition and turned its attention to the international. In 2006, the fair began to cooperate with the world's largest industrial exhibition organizer - Hannover AG, Germany - for the first time introduced the latter's three exhibitions in China - industrial automation, machine tools and metal processing and power electricians, and later became a considerable professional exhibition of the fair.

This year, the Shanghai International Industry Fair was also officially renamed China International Industry Fair, which means that the fair has changed from showing Shanghai's technological achievements to strengthening international exchanges and cooperation from the national level and assuming the national strategy, and the exhibition policy has begun to pay more attention to "internationalization" and "specialization". Official data show that in 2006, the number of exhibitors reached 1968, of which 331 overseas exhibitors, accounting for 16.82%, foreign exhibitors exhibitors 1458 booths, accounting for 31.2%. At the same time, the exhibition also ushered in a number of world top 500 enterprises and industry leaders for the first time to participate in the exhibition, such as Phoenix, Kawasaki, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and other world famous enterprises.

Figure 2 Site of 2006 China International Industry Fair (photo source: official website of the fair)

From 2006 to 2012, the Expo closely focused on the theme of revitalizing the manufacturing industry and improving the level of science and technology, and constantly promoted a number of scientific and technological achievements with international influence, including the "Dragon" manned submersible to come to the exhibition. The exhibition is also attracting more and more international exhibitors to participate, by 2012, the 14th CIIF has 452 international exhibitors, accounting for 27.43% of the total number of exhibitors, an increase of more than 150 over 2006.

3, the third stage (2013-present) : focus on intelligent manufacturing, to build the world's leading technology exhibition

The theme of the 15th Expo in 2013 is "Manufacturing: digital and green", the first time the word "digital", since then, digital, intelligent manufacturing has become the key words of the annual expo. Can reflect this change is the first time in 2013 the fair set up a separate industrial robot exhibition, the sub-exhibition has been concentrated in the industrial automation unit exhibition, after the exhibitors suggested, the organizing committee decided to set up a separate exhibition area for the theme, a launch will attract more than 100 domestic and foreign exhibitors actively participate.

Figure 3, 4 A robot is assembling a font at the Industrial Robot show in 2013, while this year's expo shows the audience the process of five robots simultaneously assembling a car

(Photo source: Figure 3 is from Eastday, Figure 4 is taken on site)

As one of the "four families" of robots, Yaskawa Electric of Japan has evaluated the Expo as "a domestic industrial robot exhibition of weight". At the time of the rise of the "robot replacement" boom, the scale of the robot exhibition has also expanded with the rise of market enthusiasm, and since 2016, the industrial robot exhibition area has been ranked in the top three of all sub-exhibitions. As of 2019, China has become the world's largest industrial robot application market for six consecutive years, from 2016 to 2018, China's annual output of industrial robots increased from more than 70,000 sets to more than 140,000 sets, with an average annual growth of more than 40%.

In 2017, the new energy and intelligent network auto exhibition was set up for the first time, and this year is the fourth year to set up this unit. From digitalization to intelligent interconnection, the Expo is showing the world how China's manufacturing industry continues to transform and upgrade, enabling new industrial development.

Second, the change trend of the Expo

1. Strong strategy: closely corresponding to the major development strategies of the country and Shanghai

Looking at the previous themes of the Expo, it can be found that the exhibition is often closely related to major national events or development strategies at that time. When the first Shanghai Industry Fair was held in 1999, it coincided with the 50th anniversary of the founding of New China, so the organizing committee had a special mission to show Shanghai's industrial achievements in the past half century. Therefore, well-known and old state-owned enterprises such as Shanghai Electric, Shanghai Pharmaceutical, SAIC Motor Group have appeared at the exhibition, showing Shanghai's outstanding achievements in the fields of machinery and electricity, transportation, biomedicine and so on.

In 2005, the seventh session of the Fair was to rejuvenate the country through science and education and scientific and technological innovation. Standing in the year after the Tenth Five-Year Plan, the Fair set up the Chinese Academy of Sciences "Knowledge Innovation Project Achievements Exhibition" for the first time, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and universities around the country brought a large number of new scientific and technological innovation achievements, to show the international and domestic audiences in China's strategic development of science and education under the guidance of the welcome progress.

When the state proposed the development of strategic emerging industries, the Expo once again followed the trend of The Times. In terms of the setting of sub-exhibitions, the new energy exhibition was set up in 2009, and the new energy vehicle exhibition was set up in 2013. In terms of results display, Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. exhibited 3,000-meter water depth semi-submersible drilling platform "Offshore oil 981", which became one of the four exhibits that won the gold medal of the 2012 CIIF. This was the world's advanced sixth-generation ultra-deep water semi-submersible drilling platform at that time, which not only reflected the new progress of China's relevant strategic emerging industries, but also had great significance for improving the international competitiveness of Marine engineering equipment.

In 2015 and 2016, the Expo took "innovation, intelligence, green" as the theme, and eight professional exhibitions fully focused on the key development areas of "Made in China 2025", such as energy saving and new energy automobile exhibition showcased domestic and foreign vehicles and new energy buses; The aerospace related exhibition area displayed the achievements of the Long March 6 carrier rocket developed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. At the same time, focusing on the construction of Shanghai Science and Innovation Center, a large number of special results were also unveiled at this session of the Expo, such as Fudan University demonstrated a new high-performance quadrupole mass spectrometer, the successful development of this instrument has played a key role in overcoming the key core technology of domestic quadrupole mass spectrometry; The Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences introduced to the audience the high-precision VLBI technology that can be used to lead Chang 'e to the moon, and this technology won the Special Honor Award of the 2015 Expo.

2, high internationalization: the international influence is increasing, German and Japanese exhibitors are active

In 2006, after the official name of the China Industry Fair opened, there were only more than 300 overseas exhibitors. Over the past decade, the attraction of the Expo to overseas enterprises has increased significantly, reaching 665 in 2015, which has fully doubled over a decade ago. At the same time, every year, there will be government agencies, trade unions and other organizations from nearly ten countries or regions to participate in the exhibition.

Among the many participating countries and regions, Japan and Germany have always occupied the top two in the number of exhibitors. Before 2015, Japan ranked first, and the proportion was about twice that of the second Germany. In 2015, Germany surpassed Japan and has occupied the first place in recent years, but the number of exhibitors is not much different from Japan. Taiwan, the United States, South Korea, and Italy were next. In 2016, the Expo set up the first guest of honor mechanism to strengthen cooperation and exchanges with neighboring countries such as Russia, and the Innovation and Technology Museum of this year's Expo also set up the "' Belt and Road 'leading China-Russia innovation cooperation to a new level" plate, which more highlights the improvement of China's position in the global value chain.

3. Strong intelligence: the proportion of automation and digital exhibition is gradually increasing

CNC machine tool and metal processing exhibition and industrial automation exhibition have always been the two key exhibitions of the Expo, whether from the number of booths or booth area, these two professional exhibitions have been ranked in the top two for many years. At the same time, since the industrial robot exhibition was independently opened in 2013, its status is also rising, and its scale has been second only to the industrial automation exhibition for five consecutive years.

Figure 8 Map of the professional exhibition venue of CIIF 2020 (Photo source: shot on site)

In addition to the robot show, this year's Expo is particularly notable for the screen, this is the Japanese Omron company's "smart factory". In such a factory, a variety of communication components are produced by a line of intelligent unit production lines, greatly eliminating labor costs. Bosch Rexroth brought the debut of the AUTOMATION platform "ctrlX AUTOMATION" in China, which is known as the "smart phone" in the field of automation and can reduce the workload of equipment manufacturers by 30% to 50%.

4. High-end: The number of first exhibition exhibits continues to reach a new high

In the early years of the fair, many international exhibitors will have been in the Hannover Fair exhibited at the "new products" to China, and now more and more enterprises are more inclined to choose the China Fair as a product launch platform. According to Yao Chunyu, deputy general manager of Donghao Lansheng Group Shanghai Industrial Business Exhibition Co., LTD., the main organizer of the Expo, nearly 500 new products and new technologies of the Expo this year belong to the domestic and even global debut, far exceeding the scale of the first 300 items last year. In addition to the exhibits brought by international exhibitors, a large part of them are domestic independent research and development of scientific and technological achievements. For example, the Beidou satellite networking system participated in the research of the Shanghai Micro-Satellite Innovation Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and China Aerospace Science and Technology Group participated in the research of China's first Mars probe "Tianwen 1" and other high-tech exhibits have been unveiled.

FIG. 9 Booth of Beidou Satellite and Tianwen No. 1 (Photo source: Shot on site)

A delegation of universities led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, such as Shanghai Fudan University, Tongji University, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Technology, etc., participated in the exhibition with the newly established "Academician Expert Innovation and Achievement Exhibition" this year, and a number of technologies displayed have played a significant role in solving China's bottleneck technology.

Figure 10 University exhibition area (Photo source: on-site shooting)

5, smart: Create a new life of the Internet of everything

"Wisdom" has gradually become the high-frequency words of the Expo. At this year's Expo, China Telecom put forward the concept of "smart community" and "smart family" with the theme of "Wisdom in the future"; SAP, a global provider of management and collaborative business solutions for large enterprises, presented its "Smart Logistics" solution; Zhangjiang Science City led many smart medical and intelligent robot companies in the park to appear together.

　　

Figure 11 China Telecom booth (photo credit: shot on site)

FIG. 12 SAP booth showcasing smart logistics solutions (Photo source: Shot on site)

Figure 13 Zhangjiang Science City booth entrance (Photo source: shot on site)

Not only the exhibits appearing at the Expo tend to be intelligent, but even the Expo itself has added more and more intelligent elements. For the first time, the Expo held "online IBO", adopting a new exhibition model of "offline based, online supplemented", and creating a new online platform for the Expo through new Internet technologies such as 5G live broadcast and virtual exhibition hall. Such a model not only realizes the organic integration of online and offline exhibition, but also focuses on showing the Shanghai Answer sheets supported by science and technology for epidemic prevention and control, creating a window for the public to display the style of science and technology war "epidemic", a show for science and technology to enable economic development, and a stage for the transformation and promotion of scientific and technological achievements.

Figure 14 KUKA Company is broadcasting live at the Expo (photo source: shot on site)

There is no doubt that the Expo has become an important dialogue window and economic and trade platform for China's industrial manufacturing industry to face the world. This event has not only strongly promoted the exchanges and exchanges between China and the world in terms of technology and products, but also become an important link for Shanghai industry to integrate into the global industrial chain. Forging ahead for 22 years, the Expo is constantly leading the new concept of intelligent manufacturing and the Internet of everything, leading the new trend of global industrial technology development.

As the international situation changes rapidly, China is accelerating the formation of a new development pattern in which the domestic cycle is the main body and the domestic and international cycles are mutually reinforcing. As an international display platform for new technologies and new products, the Expo not only promotes global technological exchanges and industrial integration, but also plays an important role in building a new development pattern of "double cycle". The future Expo should highlight the role of the global leading technology platform, focus on supporting the debut of domestic technologies and products in the Expo, continue to deepen technical exchanges with Europe, Japan and the United States and other countries and regions, especially to focus on consolidating the learning and cooperation with Germany, Japan and other industrial powers, and vigorously support the "Belt and Road" countries and regions to participate in the exhibition. We will continue to focus on the three key industries in Shanghai, build the brand effect of "Made in Shanghai, Made in China", create a good and open international business environment, and attract more technology enterprises to participate in the exhibition.

Liu Menglin is a research assistant at Shanghai Zhongchuang Industrial Innovation Research Center

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Original title: "Hot analysis | The past and present life of the Expo: Microcosm and Growth Rings of China's Manufacturing Industry (with video)"