Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition

The 94th China Food & Drinks Fair

The G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting was held in Chengdu

The 22nd World Route Development Forum was held in Chengdu

2016 China Chengdu Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fair

In the process of building itself into a national central city and a western economic, scientific and technological, cultural and creative, and international exchange center, Chengdu has continued to display its influence in multiple ways. Among them, successfully hosting major international convention and exhibition events is an important way for Chengdu to reach the world and for the world to understand Chengdu. Since the beginning of the year, Chengdu's convention and exhibition industry has taken multiple measures to promote the industry around the goal of building an international convention and exhibition city. After the seventh, eighth and ninth plenary sessions of the 12th Chengdu Municipal Party Committee, the Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Exposition carefully studied the spirit of the meetings and held special discussions on development plans for the convention and exhibition industry in 2017, determining an action plan of one goal, three major paths and six major actions.

A steady stream of exhibition activities

From July 23 to 24, the 2016 G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting was held in Chengdu, marking the first time the G20 entered western China. More than 900 representatives, including finance ministers and central bank governors from the United States, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and other countries, as well as representatives from the World Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations, gathered in Chengdu to discuss world economic development. This was the first time a G20 series meeting had been held in Chengdu.

From September 24 to 27, the 22nd World Route Development Forum was held in Chengdu. Airlines, airports, tourism organizations and other participants from 118 countries and regions gathered at Chengdu Century City New International Convention and Exhibition Center to attend this route event known as the Olympics of the civil aviation sector.

The hosting of major international convention and exhibition events such as the 2016 G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting and the 22nd World Route Development Forum in Chengdu is only one example of Chengdu's accelerated internationalization of its exhibition sector. According to statistics, Chengdu hosted more than 530 major exhibition activities in 2016, including more than 115 international events, reaching 101.9% of the annual target. Exhibition area exceeded 3.4 million square meters, up more than 9.5% year on year and reaching 103% of the annual target. Total revenue from the convention and exhibition industry was about RMB 83 billion, up more than 11.8% year on year and reaching 101.6% of the annual target. It accounted for 6.9% of the city's GDP and 12.8% of the added value of the city's service sector. Direct revenue was about RMB 8.3 billion, up about 11.2%, while comprehensive revenue was about RMB 74.7 billion, up about 11.9%.

Looking ahead to 2017, Chengdu aims to hold more than 1,000 convention and exhibition activities, including more than 590 major events. It will give particular attention to organizing international brand events such as the 2017 China Chengdu Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fair, the 22nd session of the UNWTO General Assembly, Tencent's 2017 Global Partner Conference and the 96th China Food & Drinks Fair, accelerating the branding, specialization and internationalization of Chengdu's convention and exhibition industry.

At the same time, Chengdu will build two sub-centers, the International Intangible Cultural Heritage Expo Park and the Eastern Suburb Memory Cultural and Creative Industry Park. It will vigorously cultivate major exhibitions and events focused on intangible cultural heritage, cultural creativity, animation and games, arts and crafts, major sports events and international performances, and strive to create distinctive convention and exhibition projects with Chengdu characteristics, features of the times, and national or even international influence. With an all-Chengdu approach, the city will organize brand festivals and events based on the advantageous industries of districts, county-level cities and counties, following the principles of one district one festival and high-quality development. It will strengthen guidance for key events in districts, county-level cities and counties and create multiple regional exhibition function points.

Improving services and benchmarking against international standards

Building an international convention and exhibition city requires benchmarking against international standards and ensuring that exhibitions have international quality. This not only requires introduced events to have international recognition and global guests, but also requires cooperation with internationally known exhibition organizations and first-class international standards in exhibition services, standards alignment and personnel training.

As early as 2013, Koelnmesse (China) Co., Ltd., one of the world's four largest exhibition companies, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Exposition to cooperate with Chengdu in branch establishment and personnel training. In May 2013, the bureau formally joined the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), becoming the first government institution in central and western China to join this well-known international meetings organization.

The Society of Independent Show Organizers, the Asian Federation of Exhibition and Convention Associations, Singapore Exhibition Services, the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau, Pakistan's FAKT Exhibitions, Singapore's CareerMinded and other large overseas organizations in the convention and exhibition field have successively visited Chengdu to study its soft and hard environment for exhibitions and to discuss cooperation in related exhibition projects and economic and trade activities.

A series of strategic cooperation memoranda have built communication bridges between Chengdu and high-quality international convention and exhibition resources. Through regular high-level meetings, opinion-exchange mechanisms and long-term working mechanisms, the parties jointly explore exhibition projects that fit Chengdu's industry characteristics and resource advantages, promoting the settlement of more international exhibition projects in Chengdu.

Facing 2017, Chengdu will make full use of the overseas representative offices of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and the China Chamber of International Commerce, as well as Chengdu's cooperation platforms with Germany and the United States. It will strengthen contact with economic and trade circles, chambers of commerce and representative offices in China and Chengdu from Belt and Road countries, improve databases of overseas chambers of commerce, economic organizations and project information, actively build ties with more overseas chambers of commerce and economic organizations, discuss cooperation, promote Chengdu's exhibition industry and key projects, and invite more chambers of commerce and well-known enterprises from Belt and Road countries to hold exhibition activities, visit, inspect projects and participate in exhibitions and conferences in Chengdu.

In addition, formulating industry development standards, especially with reference to international standards, is an important part of Chengdu's international benchmarking. In early 2015, the first local standard for Chengdu's convention and exhibition industry, Principles for the Grading and Evaluation of Qualifications of Chengdu Exhibition Engineering Enterprises, officially entered implementation. Its core content concerns grading and evaluation principles, adopting the internationally common three-level system, with Level 1 as the highest, Level 2 as the higher level and Level 3 as the lowest.

In 2017, Chengdu plans to add one UFI-certified exhibition project and one ICCA-certified conference, cultivate one local exhibition enterprise with annual operating revenue exceeding RMB 100 million, and encourage and promote the accelerated development of joint-venture exhibition enterprises.

Exhibition achievements support development

Chengdu now has multiple international and regional routes, and its global accessibility is rising. The World Route Development Forum's settlement in Chengdu is both a confirmation of the city's development potential and opportunities, and will promote Chengdu's expansion and development of global routes. Therefore, although Singapore Changi Airport is a world-renowned first-class airport, it would not miss this rare opportunity for exchange, and came to Chengdu to seek and share development opportunities for further cooperation with western China and the world, said Zhou Xinming, China general manager of Changi Airports International.

As Zhou said, convention and exhibition activities are not merely about exchange and display. They promote development in many aspects for the host city. For example, during the 22nd World Route Development Forum, the Chengdu municipal government and Sichuan Province Airport Group signed cooperation agreements with six airlines for nine scheduled direct international routes. Eight were new direct routes and one was converted from charter service to scheduled direct service, enabling Chengdu residents to fly directly from home to destinations such as Sydney, Los Angeles, Madrid and Sochi, and optimizing Chengdu's aviation environment.

A person in charge of the Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Exposition said that, based on the goals, mission and requirements of Chengdu's exhibition industry, the city will integrate exhibition work into the broader task of national central city construction for thinking, planning and deployment. With the in-depth implementation of the international convention and exhibition city action plan as the starting point, Chengdu will solidly advance key tasks such as the preparation and implementation of the 13th Five-Year Plan and the formulation of policies to promote the exhibition industry, vigorously promote the construction of an international convention and exhibition city, and support the accelerated building of Chengdu into a national central city. Chengdu will fully leverage the comprehensive driving role of the exhibition economy in stabilizing growth, supporting industries, stimulating consumption, serving people's livelihood, expanding opening-up and marketing the city. It will focus on Chengdu's advantageous industries such as electronic information and automobiles, as well as strategic emerging industries such as aerospace, rail transit, biomedicine and intelligent manufacturing, actively bid for international, national and professional exhibitions, and use these opportunities to attract investment and talent and cultivate new momentum for economic and social development.

These advantages have already appeared in exhibition activities. For example, the 16th Western China International Fair signed 1,008 investment cooperation projects with total investment of RMB 787.685 billion. At Chengdu's investment environment briefing and international cooperation park project matchmaking meeting alone, 19 strategic cooperation agreements and major project investment agreements were signed, with a total agreement value of RMB 158.63 billion. At the 2016 Chengdu Creativity & Design Week, ten projects were signed on site with a total value of RMB 2.121 billion.

Looking ahead to 2017, Chengdu will strive to achieve total convention and exhibition revenue of about RMB 89.4 billion, up 12.8% year on year, including direct revenue of about RMB 9.3 billion, up 12%, and comprehensive revenue of about RMB 80.1 billion, up 13%.

Optimizing the environment to feed back into exhibitions

As a city with outstanding performance and strong competitiveness in the exhibition field, Chengdu has attracted close attention from related institutions. On October 21, the 2016 China City Exhibition Industry Competitiveness Index Annual Release Conference and High-End Forum was held in Chengdu. At the meeting, the organizer released the 2015 national city exhibition industry competitiveness index research results and rankings. Chengdu ranked fifth nationwide, behind only Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, leading the exhibition cities of central and western China.

Why was Chengdu listed so highly? The reason lies in Chengdu's effort and persistence in the exhibition industry. Around the goal of building an international convention and exhibition city, Chengdu has vigorously implemented actions including venue expansion and upgrading, market-entity cultivation, service-environment optimization and smart-exhibition construction.

In terms of venue layout, Chengdu actively leverages the roles of the Western China International Expo City and Century City New International Convention and Exhibition Center as two core exhibition venues, forming a dual-core pattern of integration and resonance. It guides Western China International Expo City toward international and domestic super-large exhibitions and comprehensive exhibitions, while Century City New International Convention and Exhibition Center focuses on consumer-oriented, small and medium-sized characteristic exhibitions and some international exhibition activities. Chengdu will also speed up the construction of supporting facilities around Western China International Expo City, optimize the functions of exhibition, conference, cultural and creative, and commerce platforms, improve customs clearance efficiency for exhibits, improve electronic self-service consultation equipment and staffed consultation counters, provide multilingual consultation services, improve venue network quality and thereby promote exhibition development.

In cultivating market entities, Chengdu will strengthen policy support, establish lists of key enterprises and projects, and adopt tailored policies for each enterprise to help them enhance strength and market competitiveness, supporting local leading enterprises such as Chengdu New Oriental Exhibition Co., Ltd. in growing stronger and larger. In optimizing the service environment, Chengdu adheres to a one-stop, professional and human-centered exhibition service concept, improves government services such as comprehensive coordination, traffic support and atmosphere creation for exhibitions, and reduces the cost of holding exhibitions and meetings. It will also improve the Implementation Rules for Filing and Registration Management of Exhibition Activities, further clarifying the registration scope, venue requirements and time intervals for exhibition activity filing.

In smart exhibition construction, Chengdu is actively developing online exhibitions, upgrading customer management systems, online ticketing systems and exhibition e-commerce platform systems, improving big-data functions for smart exhibitions in Chengdu, and promoting mutual connectivity of information.

Contributing to the construction of a national central city

In recent years, Chengdu has built a modern industrial system featuring linked development of advanced manufacturing, modern services and urban modern agriculture. It has formed clusters of characteristic advantageous industries such as electronic information and automobiles, strategic emerging industries such as aerospace, rail transit, biomedicine and intelligent manufacturing, and modern service industries such as software and information services, modern logistics, technology finance, commerce and tourism. A total of 278 Fortune Global 500 companies have settled in Chengdu, giving the city a strong industrial foundation and favorable conditions for holding exhibitions and conferences.

Chengdu is now China's fourth city after Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and the first inland city, to implement 72-hour visa-free transit. It has opened 98 international and regional routes, connecting more than 200 domestic and overseas cities, with routes covering important hub cities in North America, Europe, Oceania, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The Chengdu-Europe Express Railway has become the fastest freight channel from China to Europe. Today, Chengdu is also one of the large Chinese cities with the fewest retained administrative approvals, and the only city in western China to enter the list of China's Top Ten Service-Oriented Governments. These conditions provide a strong foundation for Chengdu to organize convention and exhibition activities well.

(Editor: Ou Yunhai)