Training program teaches expo skills

Professionals from Xinjiang's exhibition industry meet with German expert Hans-Jurgen Gaida at a training program.[Provided to China Daily]

A training program was recently held as part of the preparation for the fifth China-Eurasia Expo in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Organized by the Xinjiang International Expo Administration, the 21-day training involved 17 representatives from the administration, the local exhibition management bureaus and the Xinjiang International Convention and Exhibition Center.

Foreign experts and senior corporate executives in the expo business were invited to give lectures.

German exhibition expert Hans-Jurgen Gaida briefed participants on the current situation and development trends of the country's exhibition industry, as well as the promotion, market operation and international market extension of the industry.

Martin Folkerts, director of global fairs at Deutsche Messe, spoke about the organizational structure, operation models, infrastructure construction and Chinese businesses of the world's leading trade fair company.

The trainees visited exhibition centers in Hannover and Koln, and participated in Agritechnica, the world's leading exhibition for agricultural machinery and equipment, to learn more about the logistics, specific procedures and booth design and construction of an international fair.

They completed several reports at the end of the training about the lessons they learned from the management models and personnel training of the Germany exhibition industry and how they could be applied to exhibition development in Xinjiang.

They also gave both theoretical and practical suggestions on how to upgrade the China-Eurasia Expo and how to promote the internationalization level of the region's exhibition sector.

The representatives, on behalf of the China-Eurasia Expo secretariat, also carried out a series of negotiations with German companies on organizing fairs in Germany. Deutsche Messe's Shanghai branch, for example, plans to follow up with further cooperation and communication.

The China-Eurasia Expo was upgraded from the Urumqi Foreign Economic Relations and Trade Fair, which was held in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang autonomous region, every year from 1992 to 2010, to a State-level expo by the State Council.

From 2011 through 2014, the expo was held annually. After the 2014 event, the event was rescheduled to be held biennially. The next and fifth event is scheduled from Sept 1 through 6, 2016.

The expo is now a national platform for western, southern and central Asian and European countries to display their technologies and products.