Vice Minister of Commerce Wei Jianguo, Vice Chairman of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Zhong Min, Vice Governor of Liaoning Provincial People?s Government Liu Ketian, Shenyang Mayor Chen Zhenggao and 28 officials and representatives from foreign embassies in China attended the press conference.

According to Liu Ketian, full preparation for the 2nd CIEME is now under way. There are nine exhibition halls this year, including eight indoor halls and one outdoor. Some 1,720 booths will be arranged, of which 1,520 are indoors. The total area covered will be 48,000 square meters. The exhibits are categorized into nine groups: machinery processing equipment, instruments and industrial automation equipment, environmental protection equipment, computer application and network technology, electrical engineering, electrical appliances and electrical power engineering equipment, general petrochemical equipment, food processing, packaging and printing equipment, farming machinery and agricultural by-product processing equipment, and industrial design.

This year, more effort is devoted to attract and promote the business of the top 500 corporations in the world and large-scale domestic equipment manufacturing enterprises so as to highlight advanced equipment and famous brand production. According to the overall plan, the 2nd CIEME will see dramatically improved quality with more rich and varied content; greater standardized design of exhibition halls and better quality services. The 2nd CIEME is trying to attract more than 120,000 visitors and realize a total domestic product contract value of 2.5 billion yuan (about US$300 million) with import and export contract value of US$200 million and negotiated investment of US$3 billion in utilizing foreign capital.

A series of activities will also be held during the 2nd CIEME, including trade and economic cooperation, negotiation for transnational companies; explanation of bid invitations for Shenyang equipment manufacturing industry; item information releases from the Chinese equipment manufacturing industry; development forum for advanced equipment manufacturing industry; cross-Straits cooperation forum in the equipment manufacturing industry; international forum on standardization and equipment manufacturing; investment trade fair and design forum on modern industry.

To date, the 2nd CIEME has received 785 reservations for exhibition booths, of which 460 are from foreign countries. Large-scale foreign enterprises to attend the exposition include GE (United States), Siemens (Germany) and Panasonic (Japan). The condition for booth ordering is better than last year.

CIEME is a state-level international annual exposition approved by the State Council (2001). Officially sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce, CCPIT and Liaoning Provincial People?s Government, the CIEME is the 5th nationwide fair following the Hi-tech Fair Shenzhen, Shanghai International Industry Fair, Beijing International Hi-tech Industries Week and China International Agriculture Expo Shaanxi. The 1st CIEME was held from August 30 to September 5 in 2002 in Shenyang International Exhibition Center and was crowned a complete success.

(China.org.cn by Staff Reporter Yan Xinxia, April 8, 2003)