Chinese exhibitors surge at German industry fair

A strong increase in the number of Chinese exhibitors is expected at German metalworking industry fair EMO Hannover 2019, the fair organizer said recently at the fair preview press conference.

“There is a really strong increase of Chinese exhibitors. Around 232 Chinese exhibitors will take part in this year’s event, which means 60 exhibitors more than last time,” said Wilfried Schaefer, Executive Director of EMO organizer German Machine Tool Builders’ Association.

Schaefer told Xinhua in an interview that the Chinese market is very important for the German producers, because it’s the largest export market for German machine tool builders for years.

“We will have quite a number of innovations from all the various products, especially solutions not only for machines, but also for production processes and components, which are based on digitalization,” Schaefer said when asked about the major highlight of the fair.

From September 16 to 21, international manufacturers of production technology will be spotlighting smart engineering at the EMO Hannover 2019 under the theme of “Smart technologies driving tomorrow’s production.”

Schaefer noted that customers will be provided with new possibilities to influence production processes through the data that they get from machines and that they will be able to manage the processes within the benchmarks they expect. “We have 8,800 square meters this year, which is 3,000 square meters more than in 2017,” he continued.

Referring to the new technology in the age of 5G, Schaefer said 5G makes real-time communication during the production possible, which will greatly help the producers.

Meanwhile, he said it is also a challenge. To realize the Industry 4.0, skilled engineers are very much needed to program solutions and meet customers’ individual requirements.

Schaefer reiterated that free trade is very much in need, in order to continue to develop the business, because free trade has a very big influence on the export volume. “We are waiting for a good solution to the trade frictions between the US and China.”

According to the organizer, the world’s premier trade fair for the metalworking industry will showcase the entire bandwidth of modern-day metalworking technology, which is at the heart of every industrial production process.

The event takes place every two years in Germany and it attracted in 2017 almost 2,230 exhibitors from 44 different countries and regions, and around 130,000 trade visitors from 160 nations.