HONG KONG The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (TDC) has once again been criticised by private sector players, this time during a high-profile government meeting on the future direction of the city’s exhibition industry.
The meeting was called by the Commerce & Industry Panel of the Legislative Council and was attended by around 40 industry stakeholders..
The meeting quickly split into two camps – local manufacturing associations who benefit from TDC’s powerful position, and private sector bodies who submitted detailed allegations of anticompetitive behaviour and made a number of proposals designed to level the playing field.
The long-rumbling dispute was partially sparked by renewed discussion of a Phase 3 expansion for the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC), which TDC owns.
Global Sources, whose China Sourcing Fairs anchor AsiaWorld-Expo (AWE), has demanded the government clarify its vision for the future of the industry and threatened to move its shows elsewhere.
A spokesperson for Global Sources said the conditions under which it was encouraged to bring its shows to Hong Kong have changed, and that if the proposed HKCEC expansion goes ahead, AWE “will fail totally”.
Global Sources chairman and CEO, Merle Hinrichs, again called for greater collaboration via the long-proposed ‘one fair, two venues’ model that proved successful for UBM Asia’s Jewellery and Gem Fair last September.
However, TDC believes the long waiting lists for its rival sourcing shows at HKCEC cannot be solved by taking up unused space at AWE.
TDC declined to comment, but states in its expansion proposal: “The TDC’s Mega Shows are for light consumer products that are Hong Kong’s core export business. They serve visitors already sold on the convenience of the HKCEC’s downtown location. Equally, it is not easy to persuade waiting-list exhibitors to give up Wan Chai for [the AWE location of] Chek Lap Kok.”
Full analysis in the May issue of CEI Asia.