Major tech fair to be held at Shanghai World Expo in April

The China (Shanghai) International Technology Fair will be held at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center from April 18 to 20.

The guests of honor for the fair, which is focused on technology innovation and trade, are Fujian province in China, Saarland in Germany and Liverpool in the United Kingdom.

Over 60 meetings and activities on artificial intelligence, trade, life sciences and other related fields will be held during the fair.

Domestic companies from 27 provinces and cities in China will participate in the exhibition, displaying their latest achievements in big data, integrated circuits and intelligent manufacturing. Some of the highlights will include unmanned driving systems by companies in Beijing, smart suits made of grapheme from companies in Shenzhen and an intelligent industrial cloud platform from Hubei province.

Nearly 100 overseas enterprises will also attend the fair, representing a year-on-year increase of 30 percent, according to Shang Yuying, director of the Shanghai Commerce Commission.

Visitors will also get to view the latest car collection by German car manufacturer Maybach and self-learning robots in the Germany pavilion, as well as a virtual engineering center and material innovation factory in the British section.

Over 52,000 people are expected to attend the exhibition.

The China (Shanghai) International Technology Fair, the only national trade fair for technology in the country, is jointly organized by the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Intellectual Property Administration and the Shanghai Municipal Government.

The event has been a critical platform for showcasing world-leading technologies, gathering innovation resources and fostering technology exchange and cooperation among small- and medium-sized innovative enterprises.

According to statistics by the Ministry of Commerce, the total registration value of technology import and export contracts soared to $14 billion in Shanghai last year, an increase of 184.7 percent from about $4.9 billion in 2012.