Leicestershire visits Sichuan in 2003 How dead is the expo industry? – The WTO-column
(later at
Chinabiz)
Gent – “The expo is dead, only nobody will tell you.” The journalist of the leading Belgium weekly Knack had already made up his mind before he joined the China Business Forum, part of an exhibition at the Flandres Expo this week in Gent. “We have now the internet, isn’t it,” he asked without waiting for an answer.
Great, these journalists who do not have to ask us questions anymore.
He was wrong in one way. The people in charge of the expositions do realize they look at a success formula of the 20th century that is to a large degree over. The couples visiting the huge halls in Gent are all in their fifties, moving through the spaces like they have done already for decades. Young people can only be found on the stages and restaurants, serving their parents. Exhibitions started at the end of the 19th century as a way to bring products, made by the newly-industrialized world, to the consumers. Just like media, the music industry and stock exchanges the traditional exhibition sector is urgently in need of a nice exit-model now consumers make increasingly their first selection on the internet.
The organizers of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, also present in this joyful meeting at Gent, proudly presented their grand plans for the largest world exposition ever held. They joined this other tool in trade, the trade missions, which are on the verge of extinction. More than 300 Flemish business people joined a meeting with a delegation of CCPIT from Hebei province, a tradition both regions already have in common for almost two decades. Together with a vice-governor a large number of government officials joined the delegation. Finding a Chinese business man was indeed not easy and only one made it to the stage.
The event was a great success as a social event. Nice food, good wine, fine people. It just does not seemed very useful as a tool to improve trade and is in that way a nice illustration of trade missions to China in general. First, the CCPIT as the official export organization for China is losing its clout now export has been liberalized greatly in the past few years. The government is bit by bit giving up its position in the export trade, but their organizations find it harder to adopt to the new situation. They were already very much concentrated on the province or city they would be based in, while the national CCPIT has been losing the little leverage it had over provincial organizations. Because almost anybody can export Chinese good nowadays, reforming this part of the Chinese government seems a logical nice step.
For the foreign participants in those exhibitions and trade fairs from especially Europe another reform seems necessary. Specialized trade missions for smaller companies focusing on agriculture, IT, environmental tools or almost anything still make some sense. General trade missions are only interesting as an expensive social events. Smaller regions will be unable to do organize such specialized trade missions, so that would be an interesting idea for Europe. The US can do this much easier and can offer much more pressure than divided Europe.
Of course the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai will be a big success. It will also be the grand finale of an industrial tradition of over 150 years old that has proved to be successful in the past. The same should happen to 90 percent of the trade missions to China.
Fons Tuinstra
