City looks to event to realize net gains

The second China (Guangdong) International Internet Plus Exposition closed on Sunday in Foshan, Guangdong province, attracting 319,000 visitors.

Having hosted the four-day event for the past two years, Foshan has built connections with top enterprises and research institutions, both in China and from abroad.

This will help the city to grow into "an innovation hub in the manufacturing industry in China", according to Lu Yi, Party chief of Foshan.

High-level guests attending the expo's opening ceremony on Oct 20 witnessed the signing of agreements for 20 key projects, including an innovation center, which will be built in Foshan's Nanhai district. The center aims to attract to the city Israeli companies and research institutes with advanced technology in the fields of manufacturing, the internet of things, medical care and agriculture.

A total of 613 domestic and foreign enterprises, as well as delegations from Germany, Japan and Israel, came to the event to showcase their latest technologies and products.

The German delegation also brought nearly 20 projects in the fields of biomedicine, auto parts and machinery, which it presented to a Sino-German investment forum during the expo.

Foshan is a manufacturing hub in the Pearl River Delta, with a gross industrial output value that reached almost 1.3 trillion yuan ($191 billion) in the first eight months of this year.

The city is competitive in a range of sectors such as machinery, non-ferrous metallurgy, home appliances, and textiles and ceramics, all of which are traditional manufacturing industries that require updating through information technology.

The government has been encouraging local manufacturers to embrace technologies such as mobile internet, cloud computing, big data and the internet of things to realize the goal of smart manufacturing.

Holding the Internet Plus expo is also part of the campaign.

"Through hosting the Internet Plus expo, we hope to attract high-level professionals and advanced technologies, both from across China and around the world, to Foshan. This will help the city to develop into an Internet Plus manufacturing hub," said Zhu Wei, mayor of Foshan.