The “Chinaplas” (www.chinaplasonline.com) trade fair usually alternates locations annually between Guangzhou, and Shanghai. Organiser Adsale (Hong Kong / China; www.adsale.com.hk) has announced that the 2021 edition will now take place in Shenzhen instead of Guangzhou, both in the Guangdong povince. The new Chinaplas location in Southern China connects Hong Kong with the Chinese mainland. Adsale said the previous location – “China Import and Export Fair Pazhou Complex” with an exhibition area of 250,000 m² – has become too small for Chinaplas, the largest plastics trade fair in Asia. With 3,615 exhibitors and a record 163,314 visitors, the 2019 edition in Guangzhou was already bursting at the seams (see Plasteurope.com of 06.06.2019).

The “Shenzhen World Exhibition and Convention Center”, opened in 2019, boasts some 400,000 m². According to Adsale, Shenzhen has enough space for future expansions of the trade fair. The new exhibition site also offers better access to the high-tech companies of the city working in the areas of 5G, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and big data. The organiser’s general manager, Ada Leung, said Shenzhen “is the leading city in China in 5G network infrastructure and industry applications.” Mobile phone producer Huawei Technologies is based here, for example.

In addition to the new location, Adsale is also moving the date of Chinaplas 2021. In Guangzhou, the trade fair has traditionally taken place in late May, but it will now be held from 13-16 April.

Chinaplas 2020 will take place from 21-24 April in Shanghai as planned.

The Plastics Industry Association (Plastics, Washington, D.C. / USA; www.plasticsindustry.org) welcomes the new schedule for Chinaplas 2021. President and CEO of Plastics Tony Radoszewski even thanked Adsale for changing the date of the trade fair. “Chinaplas’ decision and capability to move their show dates so that they don’t overlap with NPE 2021 and move their show venue to a region with new market opportunities amount to a big win for both our organisations, our events, and for the global plastics industry as a whole,” he said. The association emphasised the “positive, mutually-beneficial relationship” with Adsale. The “NPE 2021” (www.npe.org) trade fair, taking place next year from 17-21 May in Orlando, Florida / USA, has a new tagline – “Transform Tomorrow” (see Plasteurope.com of 21.10.2019).

“Plast 2021” (www.plastonline.org), held every three years and next year taking place between the two mega shows in China and North America from 4-7 May in Milan, is an Italian trade fair of significant importance to the European industry. The 2018 edition saw 1,510 exhibitors from 55 countries and 63,000 visitors from 117 countries (see Plasteurope.com of 08.06.2018).

Despite recent efforts to alleviate the scheduling conflicts of the three most important international major events for the plastics and rubber industry taking place within a few weeks of each other, many exhibitors and visitors will be facing organisational and logistical challenges in 2021. Thankfully, the industry will have a bit of a breather before the “K” in Düsseldorf / Germany (19-26 October 2022).