Chinaplas 2021 moves to Shenzhen, citing space limits

The massive Chinaplas trade show is moving the time and place of its 2021 edition, to the city of Shenzhen and to mid-April, one month earlier than its traditional time slot.

The company made the announcement in a Jan. 22 letter to exhibitors, saying that it was moving the show from Guangzhou because the venue in that city had become too small for the show, which is the world's largest annual plastics exhibition. The fair will now be held April 13-16, 2021, at the Shenzhen World Exhibition and Convention Center.

That new date also removes a potential scheduling conflict with the next NPE, the largest North American plastics show, which is set for May 17-21, 2021, in Orlando, Fla.

The Plastics Industry Association, which runs NPE, applauded the move in a Jan. 22 statement, although the letter from the show organizer, Adsale Exhibition Services Ltd. in Hong Kong, did not mention NPE or scheduling conflicts with other shows as the reason for the shift to Shenzhen.

"As you may be aware, the last Chinaplas held in Guanghzou in May 2019 had [a] serious space shortage problem," according to the Adsale General Manager of Sales and Marketing Ada Leung. "The show was heavily overbooked but due to limitations of the venue, we had to reluctantly turn down many space applications."

Leung said the SWECC fairgrounds, which opened in 2019 with an indoor exhibition area of 400,000 square meters in its first phase, can provide enough space for the future expansion of Chinaplas.

Adsale said the show will now alternate between Shanghai and Shenzhen, staging in Shanghai in even-numbered years and Shenzhen in odd-numbered years. This year's edition remains set for April 21-24 in Shanghai.

It had previously alternated between Shanghai in eastern China and Guangzhou in southern China, with the Guangzhou event traditionally in late May.

Leung said Adsale believes that Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong and is about 90 miles from Guangzhou, will provide improved access to the technology-intensive companies in that city, including in 5G, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and big data, and the higher-end manufacturing growing up around them.

"Shenzhen ... is the leading city in China in 5G network infrastructure and industry applications," Leung wrote. "It is also the hub of high-tech enterprises."

For example, Chinese tech firm Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is based in Shenzhen, along with phone equipment maker ZTE Corp. and Internet firm Tencent Inc., which developed the WeChat app.

In its own statement, Plastics Industry Association President and CEO Tony Radoszewski thanked Adsale for moving the show.

"Chinaplas' decision and capability to move their show dates so that they don't overlap with NPE2021 and move their show venue to a region with new market opportunities amount to a big win for both our organizations, our events, and for the global plastics industry as a whole." he said.