Last week there was the Western China International fair in Chengdu. The 11th edition of this fair welcomed 60.000 visitors from around the world, there were 3.153 businesses present from 44 countries during the 5 days of the event. The fair has 9,890 exhibition boots veering 160,000 square meters. This fair has become an important platform for Western China regions and pan-Asian nations and regions to boost exchanges and cooperation.

With Chris and Stijn present on the matchmaking event organized by EUPIC, the fair welcomed its first 2 nationalities. The principle of the matchmaking event is very similar to speed-dating. There were about 70 tables that each presented a foreign company who was seeking local (Chinese) partners. So most of the companies were rather surprised when they saw 2 white faces approaching their table. The speed-dating concept of this event gave us the chance to meet some very interesting people on a very efficient way.

Next to the matchmaking event, there were small country “pavilions” with each some specialties. For example, there was the French pavilion that presented a robot that could recognize faces and voices and the Chinese pavilion sold computer mouse and keyboards made of bamboo. In the end we had a very tiring but satisfying day with a lot of interesting and great people from all over the world.

Chengdu, fastest growing city for the next decade's The development of interior China, long on the back burner of national priorities, has reached the country's western-most large city. Chengdu is abuzz with new construction, including an increasing concentration of high-tech companies, including Dell and Cisco. New plane, road and rail connections are tying the city to both coastal China and the rest of the world. With a metropolitan population of 6 million, economic factors--including lower costs--may prove critical to the capital of the Sichuan province. The business-friendly city still has a way to grow to catch up to the GDP per capita of Shanghai.

On the 19th of September a Belgian delegation visited our city led by VOKA Flemish-Brabant. The delegation consisted of entrepreneurs and government officials included former prime minister of Belgium and member of the European Parliament, Jean-Luc Dehaene. Our marketing manager, Stijn and Fien (Belgian Lawyer based in Chengdu) were invited to give a word for the delegation about working and living in second tier China. During his speech he talked about his live besides IJO and about how much fun it is to work for a great company as IJO Technologies.