UK - Emap’s Spring Fair at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre has seen its Brands of China European Showcase feature almost quadruple the number of Chinese businesses year-on-year.
The 2009 gift and homeware exhibition hosted 65 Chinese exhibitors and this year’s number has risen to 244, with a significant proportion wholly or partly state-owned.
According to national newspaper the Financial Times, exhibitors said they had benefited from state subsidies allowing them to travel to the show, some as much as a third of the cost.
The Brands of China is sponsored by The Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China and claims to display thousands of new products that have never been displayed for the first time in the UK. Vice-minister for trade for China, Zhong Shan, told the local press: “Trade relations do not match the position of our two great trading nations” adding that UK goods account for less than one per cent of Chinese imports, which is worth a quarter of the total in Chinese goods shipped to the UK.
The Spring Fair organiser claims its show is the UK’s biggest retailing trade show with some 50,000 retailers and distributors visiting the exhibition on the first two days.
Spring Fair runs annually at the NEC from 7 to 11 February 2010.
