Fair draws more firms ( 2003-11-04 14:01) (Shanghai Daily)
Aiming to become the "Eastern Hanover Fair," the fifth Shanghai International
Industrial Fair will open on Thursday with a 12 percent rise in the number of
overseas exhibitors.
The fair, held from Thursday to Tuesday at Shanghai New International Expo
Center in Pudong New Area, managed to attract 1,131 companies and institutes to
showcase their latest products and technologies, said Li Liangyuan, vice
secretary general of the Shanghai municipal government, one of the organizers of
the annual fair
Li revealed that 317 overseas exhibitors, including Siemens, BP and GM, from
more than 20 countries and regions will attend the fair, whose theme is
information technology and industrialization. The number is 12 percent more than
last year's.
Last year, deals worth 43.525 billion yuan (US$5.24 billion) were sealed
during the fair, a rise of 39.24 percent over that in 2000. The deals involved
high-tech products, assets, technology exchange and foreign investment.
The Hanover Fair, held in the German city annually, is the world's largest
technology exhibition that draws thousands of visitors and companies.
The Shanghai Assets and Equity Exchange will put on the block more than 1,500
projects worth millions of yuan at the fair.
The exchange, which was founded in 1994 as a platform for the restructuring
of state-owned enterprises, has short-listed 250 projects, said Wang Long, vice
president of the exchange.
"Most of the projects that will be put for sale are state-owned assets, which
are concentrated in the manufacturing and processing sectors," said Wang.
"The sellers of these assets mainly come from Shanghai and its neighboring
provinces as well as the northeast provinces, such as Heilongjiang and
Liaoning."
Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces will put on the hammer some
mega-projects, each of which is valued at around 6 billion yuan, a sign that the
northeast pro-vinces will speed up the restruc-turing of the state-owned assets.
This is in line with the government policy to resurrect the prosperity of the
country's northeast industrial bases.
Also, Shanghai Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, the country' biggest state-owned
conglomerate that makes and sells drug, is expected to ink deals to sell part of
its 4.4 billion yuan worth of assets.
"Other assets will be sold through the public bidding after the fair as there
are lots of potential buyers," said Zhang Hailong, the exchange's president.
