Texcare Asia & China Laundry Expo 2022 has become the latest trade fair in China to be deferred due to Covid restrictions.
The 2022 edition of the fair had been scheduled to take place 28–30 September at the Ningbo International Conference & Exhibition Center. It will now be deferred. New dates are expected.
Organisers say they made the decision in order to prioritise the safety of attendees and to support the government’s pandemic control measures.
The show claims to be the leading trade fair for the laundry and textile care industry in Asia. TXCA & CLE provides business openings across the supply chain, including machinery, systems and accessories, chemicals and consumables, digital and intelligent solutions, energy saving and environmental protection technologies, leather care products and rental services.
TXCA & CLE is an annual event organised by the Laundry Committee of China General Chamber of Commerce and the China Light Industry Machinery Association, in conjunction with Messe Frankfurt (Shanghai) Co Ltd and Unifair Exhibition Service Co Ltd.
The news from Ningbo follows instances of other organisers having to postpone events at short notice due to direction from the Chinese authorities. In Shenzhen, printing show TCT Asia, organised by Rapid News, was told it could not open less than 10 hours before it was due to start. Skift quoted CEO Duncan Wood as saying: “We’ve learned to expect the unexpected, and what you thought you knew, you probably don’t. Any show organiser around the world has become more resilient and used to fast-moving situations.”
Shenzhen has also had other events hit by lockdowns in the city. Formnext + PM South China, is another Shenzhen show postponed due to Covid fears, although the number of reported cases are certainly small (24) compared to numbers in other parts of the world.
The sudden shutdowns are not only bad for organiser business, but are having an increasingly profound effect on the industry in China and the wider region. Messe Frankfurt’s ISH China & CIHE China, a show targeted at the heating, ventilation, plumbing and air-conditioning sectors, has been moved back to May 2023, at the New International Exhibition Centre, Beijing, while its Shanghai edition has been pushed back to the third quarter of next year.
Mark Cochrane, Asia Pacific regional director for UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry, has said that organisers simply have to follow the restrictions given by the relevant authorities wherever events are run.
“At the same time, decisions like this have a devastating effect, for the specific show and its attendees, for the organiser and their staff, and our whole industry,” he told Skift.
“Where uncertainty remains, people hesitate. Organising a trade show is a major endeavour and investment, so organisers are looking for stability and reliability. If a destination cannot offer that, we see that shows are being relocated elsewhere for the time being, usually to another country,” he added.
And there were reports on Bloomberg and the South China Morning Post quoting an anonymous Ukrainian diplomat claiming that a China state-backed expo pulled a Ukraine trade promotional event at the last minute.
The forum had allegedly been scheduled to take place at the China International Fair for Trade in Services which ran 31 August- 5 September. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said she wasn’t aware of the situation.
