Background information for the media

The 13thChinaBeijing International High-tech Expo

Will be held in May

April 15, 2010

The 13th China Beijing International High-tech Expo (CHITEC), which is jointly hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), State Intellectual Property Office, and Beijing Municipal Government, will be held in Beijing between May 27th and 31st, 2010.

1. The overall program of activities

The 13th CHITEC is a grand event of international exchange and cooperation by international high-tech industries which is held against the background that waves of the international financial crisis have not yet calmed down and the Chinese economy has entered into a period of major historical changes characterized by the speeding up of thetransformation of themode of economic development, which is driven by scientific and technological innovation. Specific background and historical opportunities have provided the current CHITEC with distinctive themes of the times and content of activities.

The theme of the current CHITEC is "enhancing the capability of independent innovation and accelerating the transformation of development mode".

Around this theme, the current CHITEC will highlight the three core contents of independent innovation, emerging strategic industries and low-carbon green economy, focusing on promoting domestic and international cooperation in major scientific and technological industrial projects, on promoting independent innovation and the construction of an innovation-oriented country, and on promoting China's economy onto the track of sustainable development characterized by being innovation-driven and endogenous growth.

The activities of the 13th CHITEC will include a key-note speech session, 60,000 square meters of high-tech exhibition, nine thematic forums and summit conferences as well as five project promotions. At the same time, the Meeting of the International Business Leaders Advisory Council for the Mayor of Beijing will be held, which will be attended by more than 20 heads of Fortune 500 companies.

1) High-tech Exhibition

The exhibition of the current CHITEC will be held in Halls 1-8 of the ChinaInternationalExhibitionCenter. According to the State’s industrial development guide, the CHITEC will set up six specialized exhibitions and six comprehensive exhibitions. The specialized exhibitions include Exhibition of Consumer Electronics and Information Technology, Exhibition of National Key Research Project Results, Exhibition of Circular Economy and Energy-saving and Emission Reduction Technology, Exhibition of Technology for New Media and Internet of Things, Exhibition of Modern Agricultural and Green Technology, and Exhibition of Automobile Technology.The comprehensive exhibitions that highlight the advantages and characteristics of regional industries include Exhibition and Trade Show of Scientific and Technological Innovation Achievements by various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, Foreign National Exhibitions, Exhibition of Taiwan’s Excellent Products, Exhibition ofBeijing’s Scientific and Technological Achievements, Exhibition of Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Achievements, and Exhibition of Independent Innovation Achievements by industrial functional areas. The CHITEC recruitment activities that have been held for many consecutive years will be organized at the same venue as the high-tech exhibition.

2)Project Promotions and Negotiations

Project promotions and negotiations, as a significant part of the current CHITEC, will arrange 5 specialized events of various levels in different areas. They are: Promotion of Overseas Investment Environment for Chinese Enterprises, Promotion of Scientific and Technological Achievements and Business Cooperation Projects, Promotion of Business Applications of Cloud Computing, Series of Promotions by various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, and Series of Promotion Activities for scientific and technological cooperation projects in Beijing. Launched at these events will be hundreds of projects of transferring central and local scientific and technological achievements and of key industrial cooperation. During the CHITEC, both domestic and foreign government and business delegations and high-tech enterprises will be organized to conduct face-to-face negotiations so as to provide an exchange and trading platform for the industrialization of China’s high-tech achievements and the expansion of regional and international industrial cooperation.

3) Forums and Summit Conferences

The forums and summit conferences will focus on new hot topics in China’s current economic, social and industrial development such as speeding up the transformation of development mode, cultivating new strategic industries, low-carbon economy, energy strategy, integration of industrialization and informatization, and building cosmopolitan cities so as to grasp the global trends and highlight the role of industrial guidance.The nine forums are: China’s Financial Summit, International Forum on the Development of China’s High-tech Enterprises, High-level Forum on China’s Energy Strategy, High-level Forum on the Development of China’s Circular Economy, Summit on the Informatization of China’s Manufacturing Industry, International Forum on China’s Protection and Utilization of Biodiversity and the Green Industry, Forum on Cosmopolitan Cities and Low Carbon Economy, High-level Forum on Beijing’s Talent Development, and Forum on Scientific and Technological Innovation and Urban Management. High-level government authorities, leaders of international organizations, well-known and influential domestic and international experts, scholars and entrepreneurs will be invited to deliver speeches from different perspectives and conduct interactive exchanges so as to provide idea and concept support for the decision-making of government agencies and industrial circles.

4) Specialized activities

The ninth biennial Meeting of the International Business Leaders Advisory Council for the Mayor of Beijing will be held on the eve of the CHITEC. The meeting will focus on such topics as "boosting the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure to promote the capital’s sustainable economic development", "enhancing the independent innovation capability and building an technological innovation center with international influence", and "successful experiences that Beijing should learn from in building a cosmopolitan city". More than 20 heads of Fortune 500 companiesas advisors to the mayor of Beijing will offer advice and suggestions on the capital's economic development.

Judging from the activities that have been arranged, the 13th CHITEC has a highlighted theme, and an upgraded level of internationalization and professionalism. It will be a new appearance and convergence of the new technological results and new industrial projects of China’s high-tech industry in the new historical starting point, and a concentration and burst of new ideas and new concepts from new perspectives in the post-crisis times.

2. Main Characteristics

Compared with the previous sessions, the current CHITEC has five characteristics.

1)Highlighting the theme of independent innovation

Innovation is still the main theme of this year's CHITEC. Its exhibition will provide a platformforChina's independent innovation companies and products to conduct display and communication with international high-tech enterprises on the same stage. A group of multinational high-tech corporations that play a leading role in domestic industries, national and provincial high-tech parks and development zones will showcase their independent innovations with characteristics of the times that were achieved during the "11th Five-year Plan" period and the implementation of the revitalization plans of the ten industries, including those major technological breakthroughs that have a key role in the development of the industries. Among them, a number of industrial alliances and clusters formed in recent years in such fields as software, integrated circuits, communications equipment, new energy and modern manufacturing will be put on display by high-tech zones and development zones, showing their latest technological results in industrial upgrading and enhancing their technological competitiveness. The specialized forums of the CHITEC will, in different areas, conduct in-depth discussions on such topics as improving the capability of independent innovation, and building a national innovation system, an environment for industrial innovation, and the investment and financing environment.

2)New strategic industries showing their strength to play a major role

Theemerging strategic industries, as the important strategic choice that has a bearing on China’s future economic position and achieving endogenous economic growth, will attract full attention at the current CHITEC. At the CHITEC exhibition, technological products by emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, high-end manufacturing, information networks, new medicine, electric vehicles, and energy-saving and environmental protection products will constitute the main body. Meanwhile, a number of featured new industrial projects will also be launched by various provinces and cities as their major development projects in the future. This year, the Exhibition of Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Achievements, which has been put on display for several consecutive years, will take "leading the emerging strategic industries and building a global innovation center" as the theme, focusing on the new achievements of scientific and technological innovation in the six emerging strategic industries including cloud computing, Internet of Things, smart grid, mobile Internet, low-carbon technologies and biomedicine. Among them, there are major technologies and applications of cloud computing in the whole industrial chain; leading technology and application cases of Internet of Things characterized by digital living, digital cities and sensor technology; formulation of standards for the 4thgeneration mobile communication and the new generation of Internet;major technological breakthroughs in the industrial chains of smart grid; display of the whole industrial chain in such cross-industrial areas as electric vehicles and power batteries; solution for converting waste water into resources, etc. The Summit on the Informatization of China’s Manufacturing Industry, which will be held for the first time, will explore the deep-going integration of industrialization and informatization so as to promote the development of high-end manufacturing and the rise of “Created by China”.

3)Pushing forward industrial cooperation and the landing of major projects

At the current CHITEC, exhibition, forums and negotiations are organically integrated to promote regional and international cooperation in high-tech industries, and the landing of major industrial projects. Different from conventional exhibitions, CHITEC exhibition, apart from displaying the new technologies and new products, will showcase the new projects and new plans of key industries from various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. Being a significant part of project promotions and trade talks, a large number of major project promotions and contract signing activities will be held by various provinces and municipalities. The industrial function areas which Beijing built vigorously in recent years will make an overall appearance and launch a number of cooperation projects under construction or being planned in key industries to seek global cooperation. Promotion of Scientific and Technological Achievements and Business Cooperation Projects, which is co-hosted by the Torch Center of Ministry of Science and Technology and China High-tech Industrialization Association, will focus on the promotion of technological achievements as well as key projects supported by the government in such industries as solar energy, military and civilian dual-use, and new energy automobiles to invite central enterprises to participate in the project docking.

4) Close integration of world-wide topics and the practice in transforming the mode of development

The close integration of world-wide topics and the practice in transforming the development mode is a major characteristic of the current CHITEC. Such world-wide topics as low-carbon economy, circular economy, biodiversity, cosmopolitan cities, integration of industrialization and informatization, cloud computing, Internet of Things, and the triple integration of cable TV, communication network and the Internet will appear frequently at the current CHITEC. In the macroscopic discussion and heated debate around these global topics, and in the promotion and introduction of the experiences and ideas about industrial development in developed countries, we will explore in depth solutions to adjusting and upgrading China's industrial structure, industrial pattern, institutional innovation, technological innovation and other bottleneck problems.

"Low carbon" will be the most heated point at the current CHITEC. Four out of the nine CHITEC forums will face directly the low-carbon topics, covering various levels from the construction of an industrial system and consumption patterns characterized by low carbon emissions to the technological innovation in low-carbon industries, discussing lively such topics as "low-carbon economy", "low-carbon energy", "circular economy", "low-carbon city", "low-carbon life", etc. High-level Forum on China’s Energy Strategy will conduct specialized discussion on such topics as restructuring the coal, electricity, oil, gas and other major energy industries, energy efficiency, clean energy, new energy development, etc. Smart grid, green thermal power, new energy automobiles and the development of such new energy resources as natural gas, coal bed methane, and shale gas will become the new hot topics. High-level Forum on the Development of China’s Circular Economy will, from the perspective of responding to climate change, discuss such topics as circular economy and low carbon emissions, the impact of corporate social responsibility on circular economy, low-carbon economy and green finance, the market and operation of carbon trading, etc.Forum on Scientific and Technological Innovation and Urban Management will, taking "the environmental construction of the capital city under the vision of cosmopolitan cities" as the core proposition, conduct deep-going discussions on the construction of the ecological environment and living environment of the capital that meet the requirements of a low-carbon city, and the building of a development mode of the environmental construction which combines system innovation with technological innovation. The CHITEC exhibition will display the latest technological achievements in low power consumption, low pollution and low-emission industries as well as the experience of a low-carbon lifestyle. The pavilion of low carbon buildings and low carbon transport in the Exhibition of Circular Economy and Energy-saving and Emission Reduction Technology will feature the achievements of independent innovation that are closely related with people's life, including the latest generation of products for low-carbon solar-energy buildings, low-carbon transport solutions, and the big zero-emission buses, etc. to promote low carbon living.

2010 is the international year of biodiversity. The International Forum on the Protection and Utilization of Biodiversity and the Green Industry will combine the exploration of biological diversity conservation with biological safety, environmental safety, the green industry and climate change, so as to attract the community's concern for biodiversity conservation, promote the protection, attention and recovery of the function of the eco-system, and realize the economic value of biological diversity conservation.

5) Encouraging Chinese enterprises to go out to open up trade and investment markets, and gradually establish an independent global production system

Aiming at investment opportunities overseas in post-crisis times, the Promotion of Overseas Investment Environment for Chinese Enterpriseswill extend its view to gradually establishing an independent global production system. At that event, the RhineMain International Investment Promotion Council from Frankfurt, Germany, Lille Metropolitan Development Agency from France, the North AmericaChineseCommoditiesTradingCenter in Wisconsin, U.S. (Mall of Asia and the United States) and other organizations will release a large amount of information of pragmatic demand to attract investment enterprises to localize production and operation. Among them, the North AmericaChineseCommoditiesTradingCenter will be built as an "incubator" for the international operation of Chinese enterprises so as to unclog the channel for the nation's old and famous brands to enter the North American market. At the High-level Forum on China’s Energy Strategy, six GCC countries will introduce petroleum and petrochemical projects and discuss the docking of equipment, focusing on introducing the petroleum and petrochemical engineering projects by the six GCC countries and projects in the area of equipment needs.

3. The current progress of the preparations

Today, it is 42 days before the opening of the CHITEC, and the preparatory work has entered the countdown. So far, the organizational work for the CHITEC is almost complete. There will be more than 2000domestic and international high-tech enterprises such as Panasonic, Nokia, ABB, Haier, Lenovo, Hisense, Changhong, BOE and Shougang as well as high-tech zones and development zones showcasing on a large scale their latest scientific and technological achievements and key industrial projects.70 delegations organized by government agencies and technological and business circles from international organizations and 28 countries and regions have committed their participation. Among them, dozens of senior executives from international organizations and heads of Fortune 500 companies as well as well-known experts, scholars, entrepreneurs, including the Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN, the Secretary General of the International Bulk Power, chairman and global president of McKinsey & Company, will deliver speeches at the forums.Many countries including France, Britain, Germany, Chile, Russiaand Brazilwill form exhibition delegations to conduct on-site exchange with Chinese enterprises. Domestic provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities are organizing enterprises and projects for full participation in CHITEC. Some projects are already in the pre-docking.

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