Of the four themed exhibitions that make up this year's China International Small and Medium Enterprises Fair, three have finished and won praise from both participants and visitors, organizers said.

The most recent, a smart building materials and home decoration exhibition, was held from Oct 23 to 26 and attracted about 200 high-tech companies, as well as famous brands in the ceramic tile, pipeline, hardware and furniture sectors from China, Germany, Italy and the United States.

Visitors to the exhibition include delegates from 60 Chinese industrial associations and foreign professional buyers from 12 countries including Russia, New Zealand and Kyrgyzstan.

"The building materials industry is one of the nine pillar sectors in Guangdong province," said Lu Binghui, deputy secretary-general of the Guangdong provincial government. "We always attach great importance to the development of the industry and consider it a key tool to increase our international competitiveness," he added.

The province is home to several leading companies in the fields of basic building materials, building ceramics, bathroom equipment, plumbing and paint. It produces about 60 percent of China's lighting and aluminum fittings and over 50 percent of China's ceramics, glass, coatings, stone materials and small hardware.

The second part of the fair, an intelligent manufacturing and equipment exhibition, was held from Oct 15 to 18. Taking place at the Guangzhou International Sourcing Center, the exhibition included nearly 800 booths for about 260 Chinese and overseas companies, including 28 listed companies.

At the opening ceremony for the exhibition on Oct 15, organizers invited some of the editors of the Made in China 2025 plan to talk about their analysis and experts from leading intelligent manufacturing companies in Guangdong, Israel and Hong Kong to talk about the industry's future development internationally.

Guangdong, a major manufacturing base both domestically and internationally, launched a 10-year plan on Aug 27, forecasting the overall development layout of the province's intelligent manufacturing sector. It plans to focus on making breakthroughs in fields such as intelligent sensors and instrumentation, core components, high-speed and high-precision manufacturing processes and embedded industrial chips.

By 2025, the province hopes to have nurtured a batch of international companies that own core technologies and famous brands, and also to have built itself into one of China's intelligent manufacturing demonstration zones, with both global influence and competitiveness, according to the plan.

The first exhibition was designed for companies from overseas and also provinces and regions in China and was held from Oct 10 to 13. The 52,000-square-meter exhibition accommodated more than 2,000 companies from China and foreign countries.

They were mainly engaged in sectors such as bio-science, chemicals, food, medicines, electronic products, information technology and machinery manufacturing.

The four-day event attracted more than 180,000 visits, resulting in contracts and agreements worth 15.36 billion yuan ($2.4 billion).

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Lu Binghui (right), deputy secretary-general of the Guangdong provincial government, visited the smart building materials and home decoration exhibition. Photos provided to China Daily

Business leaders and officials attended an industrial summit during the home decoration exhibition.

(China Daily 10/31/2015 page9)