These two major leather sector events being held consecutively are considered as the most important to be organised in China in recent decades. ACLE and WLC should complement each other in terms of both attendance and interest, hence, offering a unique opportunity for the global leather sector to come together.
The Congress will be organised by co-hosts TILA (the Taiwanese International Leather Association) and CLIA (the China Leather Industry Association), under the broad banner of the ICT (the International Council of Tanners), with APLF as Founding Sponsor. It will focus on the future changes in the context of the current and future world economic situation as well as on the identification of strategies to explore the leather industry development and improvement, sustainable development, industrial supply chain, social responsibility, and other related issues in order to help enterprises respond to current and future challenges effectively.
Following speeches of well-known economic and Chinese market research experts, sessions cover the key changes in the way that consumers are behaving and with special focus on China; the strategies that leather products manufacturers will take over the next few years and the reasons for them continue to use leather; and how modern tanneries will respond to the challenges posed by consumers, brands, environmental demands and pressures on raw materials.
According to the CLIA, the beginning of 2017 showed a positive trend for the country’s leather industry, with sales revenue increasing 5.6% in the first two months of the year. A 1.1% decline in exports was registered in the period, while imports of finished leather, semi-finished and raw hides and skins increased 10%.
Since then China’s economic growth is reported to have rebounded up to 6.9% in the first quarter, beating expectations, while consumer spending continues to increase at a pace of just over 10%. China’s New Silk Road project constitutes another attractivity; important for the development of trade in the region and with Europe. Read more here.
After the successful revamp of APLF’s materials and components sector as “Materials+” at the APLF fair last March, the organisers of ACLE decided to launch a similar sector at the 2017 edition of the fair called “Innovations Lab”; an incubator of innovative ideas to be located in Hall E2 of the Shanghai New International Expo Centre in Pudong. Activities such as open seminars will also be held in the space. Participants in Innovation Lab will include manufacturers of innovative products or with technological innovation on machines, materials and components that are completely new to ACLE, or existing manufacturers that wish to display the latest working machines for the first time at the show this year.
In order to enhance visitor promotion, the organisers said they will focus on recruiting buyers and decision makers from the automotive and furniture sectors that are based in the major manufacturing provinces of Mainland China such Chongqing, Guangdong, Shanghai, Beijing and Jilin.
In 2016, ACLE attracted over 23,000 visitors, of which around 20,000 from the main manufacturing provinces of China.
