News Briefing

The10th China Beijing International High-tech Expo (CHITEC) -- will be held in Beijing between May 24th and 29th, 2007.

After nine successful sessions, the CHITEC, which is jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Information Industry, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), State Intellectual Property Office, and Beijing Municipal Government, has become a landmark platform for high-tech enterprises and related industries both at home and abroad to exhibit the most up-to-date scientific and technological results, to disseminate frontier ideas and concepts, to announce information of industrial policies and to conduct regional and international cooperation.

This year sees the tenth session of the CHITEC, and the CHITEC history has witnessed the rapid and healthy development of China's economy and its high-tech industries. The unique spiritual content and technological quality of the CHITEC was created by firmly grasping the pulse of the times in the development of China’s economy and its high-tech industries and promoting the industrialization, commercialization and internationalization of high and new technologies. Since its inauguration in 1998, the CHITEC has integrated high-tech exhibitions, thought encounters in forums, trade fairs and project negotiations as well as specialized activities into one, forming a unique high-tech expo mode of its own. During this decade, the CHITEC has assembled global technology, ideas, capital, information and human resources in an all-round display, communication and connection, attracted broad participation and great concern of government departments, sci-tech and industrial circles both from home and abroad, and played an important role in promoting China’s economic restructuring and industrial upgrading, and boosting regional and international cooperation in high-tech industries. During the previous nine sessions, there were 532 governmental, technological and economic delegations from more than 100 countries and hundreds of high-tech multinationals attending the CHITEC. People from government departments, high-tech industrial and financial circles of all 31 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, the Taiwan region and Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions gathered in the CHITEC consecutively in the past few years to conduct large-scale investment and promotion activities, with more than 3 million people mainly from high-tech industries both from home and abroad attending. The CHITEC has become an important window for overseas multinationals to introduce their latest high-tech products to the Chinese market and for Chinese proprietary innovation achievements to go to the international market, with internationally leading high-tech products introduced by more than 10,000 high-tech enterprises and research institutes at home and abroad. The nine sessions held more than 1,000 events including high-ranking forums and specialized exchanges, with more than 3,200 people delivering speeches, including well-known scientists and economists both from home and overseas, Nobel laureates, executives from global top 500 enterprises, high-level decision makers from world-famous financial institutions and authoritative personages from domestic government agencies. They introduced to China the world’s latest high-tech achievements and forefront ideas of the new economy and at the same time conveyed to the world the latest policies, plans and trends about China’s industrial development. The CHITEC held multi-level and wide-ranging bilateral and multilateral project docking negotiations covering such areas as domestic and foreign investment, technology trade, Olympics-related business opportunities, key urban development projects, government procurement and auctions of technological achievements, 72 rounds in all, with 60,000 enterprises from home and overseas participating. According to incomplete statistics, altogether 3535 contracts, agreements and intents were signed in the previous nine sessions of the CHITEC, covering Sino-foreign joint ventures, cooperative projects, technology trade and trade in goods, amounting to a total of 40.54 billion U.S. dollars. Growing up in innovation, the CHITEC, with its vigor and vitality, has shown the firm confidence of the Chinese government in advocating regional and international cooperation in high-tech industries and the vast market prospects of the development of China’s high-tech industries.

The 10th CHITEC will be a grand event of international communication and cooperation in high-tech and related industries, which takes the scientific development concept as the guide, faces the foci and heated points of this stage of China’s economic, social and high-tech industrial development, and explicitly demonstrates the theme of “innovation and development”. The six-day CHITEC will, through dozens of activities in the four areas of high-tech exhibitions, forward-looking forums, promotions and talks on sci-tech, economic and trade projects and specialized communications, display the latest domestic and international scientific and technological achievements, highlight the tremendous business opportunities brought about to the entire world by the sci-tech industrial cooperation during the “11th Five-year Plan” and the Beijing Olympics-related economy, harvest in collision the latest ideas and concepts that guide the industrial development, and promote the regional and international cooperation in high-tech industries.

1. Activities of the 10th CHITEC

The 10th CHITEC activities consist of the key-note speech session, 60,000 m2 of high-tech exhibitions, six rounds of project promotions and talks, eight forums and a large-scale personnel recruitment activity.

As the main stage of CHITEC activities, the exhibitions will be concentrated at the China International Exhibition Center, using Halls Nos.1-9, with a total showing area of more than 60,000 m2. They will be divided into the following 10 pavilions, namely, Digital Olympics Technology and Equipment, Circular Economy, Technology into People's Lives, Automobile Technology, Exhibition Delegations from Foreign Countries, Exhibition Delegations from Various Provinces, Autonomous Regions and Municipalities, Achievements of Proprietary Innovation from Zhongguancun, Sci-tech Works by Young Students, CHITEC Achievements during the Last Ten Years, and Personnel Recruitment. The exhibitions will focus on the main line of “independent innovation and energy-saving”. The largest among them is the “Digital Olympics Technology and Equipment” pavilion, where dozens of domestic and international well-known high-tech enterprises will, under the theme of “Digital Olympics”, display informatization achievements directly applied to Olympic Games and innovative results in the city’s informatization construction. The pavilion of “Circular Economy”, which takes resource conservation and comprehensive utilization of resources as its theme, will display technological products in environmental protection, energy conservation, new energy and new materials. The pavilion of “Technology into People's Lives”, which is set up for the first time, will put on show achievements of independent innovation in such areas as energy-saving, environmental protection, bio-medicine and digital life which are closely related to the lives of the ordinary people. The pavilion of “Achievements of Proprietary Innovation from Zhongguancun”, which is a national base of independent innovation, will launch for the first time the cluster innovative achievements with its pilot enterprises as the main body. The interactive pavilion of “Sci-tech Works by Young Students in the Capital City”, which is introduced into the CHITEC for the first time, will integrate exhibition, demonstration, promotion, competition and interaction into one to display the innovative spirit and achievements of contemporary college students as well as primary and secondary school students.

There will be six rounds of negotiations and promotions of technological, economic and trade projects including “Talks on International Investment Projects” which focus on cooperation in technological trade projects and promotion of investment and financing projects; “Introduction of Overseas Investment Environment to Chinese Enterprises” which features commercial departments of foreign embassies, foreign industrial and commercial associations, and foreign delegations to the CHITEC presenting their promotions; “Olympic Economy Market Promotion – Olympics related business opportunities and the international forum on the post-Olympic management of the Olympic venues” which promotes the business opportunities related to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and releases the cooperative intent for the post-Olympic management of the Olympic venues; “Promotion of Scientific and Technological Achievements and Cooperative Business Projects” which gathers more than 200 key high-tech projects receiving special State support; “Promotion of New Products and New Technologies in China’s Informatization Construction” which takes e-government, informatization of agriculture, informatization of medium and small enterprises and construction of information safety as its contents; and “Series of Promotions by Various Provinces, Autonomous Regions and Municipalities” at which various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities introduce their respective local development plans, investment environment and cooperative projects with foreign partners.

Under the planning principle of “Highlighting the Theme and Creating Fine Works”, eight forums and summit conferences have been decided upon. They are: “Summit on Finance and the Development of High-tech Industries”; “International Forum on the Development of Independent Innovation and High-tech Enterprises”, “High-level Forum on China's Energy Strategy”;“High-level Forum on the Development of Circular Economy in China”;“Summit Forum on Modern Agriculture”; "Forum on New Technology and the Development of Cultural and Creative Industries”; “Forum on Technological Innovation and Urban Management”; and “International Forum on the Development of China's Trade in Services”. 

In addition, a large-scale personnel recruitment and online recruitment activity featuring the exchange of science and technology talents will also be organized.

2. Characteristics of the 10th CHITEC

Faced with the special historical background that this year is an important year for the implementation of the State’s 11th Five-year Plan and the decisive year for accomplishing the preparatory tasks of the Olympic Games, the arrangement of the current CHITEC activities has shown six characteristics.

1) Refining the theme seriously and emphasizing “innovative development”. Summing up the previous experience and following international practice, the present CHITEC makes great efforts to appropriately control the scale, upgrade its brand quality, refine the theme seriously and highlight the main thread of innovative development. The arrangement of the three segments of exhibitions, forums and promotions and negotiations, taking the scientific development concept as the guide and circling around the main line of “innovation and development”, involves and fully unfolds such key areas and heated topics as independent innovation, energy saving and waste reducing, scientific Olympics, innovative services, new rural construction, new technologies and cultural and creative industries, and other key areas of the "11th Five-Year" plan. Organically linked, the three segments support and set off one another, presenting a multi-faceted and multi-angled interpretation of the theme, bringing into full play the CHITEC role of promoting technological innovation and boosting industrial development.

2) Taking advantage of the Olympics opportunity and highlighting “Scientific Olympics”. With Olympics approaching, activities taking Olympics as the theme remain the heated points of the current CHITEC. During the CHITEC, a large number of the latest high-tech achievements related to “Scientific Olympics” will meet the eyes of the audience. In addition to the “Digital Olympics” theme exhibitions participated in by such famous firms as the Olympic sponsors Samsung, Matsushita, Lenovo, Haier, etc., many other Scientific Olympics achievements used in many fields and the competition of Olympic technologies by Olympic volunteers will be put on display at the pavilion of Achievements of Proprietary Innovation from Zhongguancun and the pavilion of Sci-tech Works by Young Students. The promotions of Olympic market development projects that were conducted during the previous sessions of the CHITEC will be extended to such topics as the post-Olympic cooperative management of Olympic venues and the development of the industrial chain.

3) Interpreting the “11th Five-year Plan” and indicating various functional positions. All provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities will form delegations with enterprises and functional zones as the main body to fully participate in the CHITEC activities. At the CHITEC exhibitions, provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in eastern, western, northeastern and central China will display in a concentrated way their industrial plans and resource advantages during the “11th Five-year Plan” period, and carry out activities to introduce in various forms their respective environment and promote key projects. Beijing’s districts and counties will also demonstrate in an all-round way their respective functional positions during the “11th Five-year Plan” period to promote themselves to the country and the world and to attract cooperation.

4) Facing hotspots and difficult issues and enhancing the authority of the forums. Forums and summit conferences featuring forward-looking, guidance and authority constitute important contents of the current CHITEC. The eight forums planned by the current CHITEC all center around the key and heated issues of economic, social and industrial development during the “11th Five-year Plan” period. “High-Level Forum on China's Energy Strategy”, “High-level Forum on the Development of Circular Economy in China” and “Forum on Technological Innovation and Urban Management” will focus directly on the difficult issues and bottlenecks highlighted in China’s social and economic development. “International Forum on the Development of China's Trade in Services” and "Forum on New Technology and the Development of Cultural and Creative Industries”, which are held for the first time and take software outsourcing as the theme, will explore new approaches of China’s industrial transfer in the new situation of high-tech development. The forums will invite international professional organizations, senior government authoritative personages at home and abroad, well-known experts, scholars, entrepreneurs and financiers to deliver speeches from different aspects and to conduct interactive communications. The new ideas and concepts that emerge from the forums and summit conferences will provide theoretical support to the decision-making by the government and the industrial circles.

5) Constantly creating new forms and realizing mutual linkage and interaction. On the basis of adhering to the basic mode of exhibitions, forums and talks, the CHITEC exhibitions will have more interactive zones. For example, the specially set up “Technology into People's Lives” pavilion and “Sci-tech Works by Young Students” interactive pavilion will enable visitors to touch high-tech in zero distance. The forum activities will schedule more interaction between the speakers and direct dialogues with the audience. The economic and trade talks and promotions will, in accordance with the market demand, include more service contents such as policy speeches, seminars on experiences and lectures on operational practices.

3. Progress of the preparatory work

At present, the preparatory work for the 10th CHITEC has entered the countdown period. 48 governmental, sci-tech, industrial and commercial delegations from 6 international organizations and 31 countries and regions, including the United States, Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan, Korea have applied to participate in the CHITEC and its exhibitions. Government ministers from Singapore, the Czech Republic, Sri Lanka, Hungary, India, Lithuania, etc. will lead delegations to attend. A number of responsible members from international organizations and well-known experts, scholars and entrepreneurs including Deputy Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, UNCTAD Creative Industries Minister, EU Director-General of Education and Culture, President of the International Association of Intellectual Property Rights Protection, Dean of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering, and senior officials from the U.S. News Group and Google Company have accepted the invitation to deliver speeches at the forums. More than ten countries including Russia, Korea, the United States, and Austria will organize exhibition delegations to conduct direct exchanges with Chinese enterprises at the CHITEC. Domestic provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have displayed great enthusiasm for the 10th CHITEC. Part of the cooperative projects representing local advantages in high-tech industries have been sent to the office of the CHITEC organizing committee for advance docking. 23 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities including Guangdong, Fujian, Shandong, and Jilin have confirmed their participation, making the number of local exhibition delegations the largest in CHITEC history. Among the high-tech enterprises that have applied to participate, dozens of enterprises that have participated for several years in a row such as Samsung, LG, Matsushita, Nokia, Powerchip, Lenovo, Haier, Hisense, Changhong, China Mobile, China Netcom, Capital Steel, and BOE will continue to carry a full range of the latest high-tech products to the CHITEC. Compilation of the carefully selected CHITEC project catalog has been completed and some projects have already started docking.