International home decor show attracts SMEs with top technology

Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, will host an international show of smart building materials and home decorations from Friday through Monday.

The four-day event is a part of the 12th China International Small and Medium Enterprises Fair, which opened on Oct 10.

The home decor show has attracted many small and medium-sized enterprises that boast advanced technologies, including intelligent controls, said Lan Fang, head of the Guangdong Construction and Decorations Materials Association, which organizes the show.

Some leading companies in the sector of building materials and home decorations, including Guangdong-based New Pearl Ceramics Group, will also participate in the event.

Activities at the show, which covers a 20,000-square-meter exhibition area, include an opening ceremony on Friday morning and a leaders summit for the building materials and home decorations industry on the same day.

The summit is expected to attract nearly 1,000 people from government agencies, industrial associations, building material companies, real estate agents, designers and engineers. It hopes to boost communication and cooperation among sectors related to building materials and home decorations.

The show also includes a networking dinner, lectures and a series of road shows hosted by companies.

Lan said her association promoted the show in countries such as Russia, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, as well as other Chinese cities with developed building materials industries.

According to Lan, more than 90 percent of 522,000 building materials and home decorations companies in China are SMEs.

"The progress of an industry, employment and social stability are closely related to the development of SMEs," she said.

Lan said her association organized the four-day event because it hopes to create more demonstration, communication and cooperation opportunities for SMEs.

The building materials industry is one of the nine pillar sectors in Guangdong province, which has advantages in terms of technical innovation, new product development and brand building, Lan said.

The province is home to many leading companies in the fields of basic building materials, building ceramics, bathroom equipment, plumbing and paint.

"More and more building materials companies have been getting rid of the image of heavy pollution, energy consumption and emissions in the past two years through equipment and technical upgrading and development of new materials," Lan said.

She said that such companies have become popular again in the capital market as they have become more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

The association in Guangdong is committed to helping local building materials companies establish direct sales networks in countries and regions along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

The association itself has set up branches in Kashgar in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Russia and Kyrgyzstan, according to its website.

Members of the association cover industrial clusters such as ceramics in Foshan, lights in the town of Guzhen in Zhongshan, and paint in Shunde district in Foshan.

Seventy percent of the association's member companies are building materials makers. Its representative members include renowned ceramics producers New Pearl Ceramics Group and Monalisa Group.

The show is one of the four exhibitions at this year's China International Small and Medium Enterprises Fair, which is organized by organizations including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the Guangdong provincial government, as well as the Malaysian Ministry of International Trade and Industry. The first part of the fair, from Oct 10 to 13, is a comprehensive exhibition for companies from overseas and other provinces and regions in China.

The second part, which started on Oct 15, focused on intelligent manufacturing and equipment and provided a platform for technical exchange and commercial cooperation to related SMEs.

It attracted more than 260 exhibition enterprises from countries and regions including Malaysia, the United States and Japan.

The fourth exhibition scheduled from Nov 1 to 4 is for the smart textile and garment industries.

songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn