Conferences & Exhibitions

bauma 2016 Shanghai

This article first appeared in Contractor February 2017.

BAUMA  has become one of the key global exhibitions for heavy machinery and the services that support them.

The crowd-pleasing Lovol transformer was on duty once again.

Given the timing cycles Bauma 2016 Shanghai has perhaps suffered from a New Zealand perspective by being so close to Conexpo / Conn-Agg Las Vegas next month.

But for the 170,000 visitors from 149 countries and regions that did attend in November, there was much to be seen in the 300,000 square metres at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. It attracted 2953 exhibitors from 41 countries and regions, which is in line with the previous show, despite the economic slowdown in China.

Seventy percent of exhibitors came from China, and 45 percent of all exhibitors were new this year. There were also seven major national pavilions, from Germany, Italy, Korea, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the USA.

The show attracted exhibitors offering every conceivable size and type of construction-related equipment and service. There were enormous pavilions displaying dump trucks, cranes, excavators, elevated platforms and concrete pumps. There were singing and dancing troupes to attract attention, and if that didn’t work, there were loud-hailers at every display. Promotional teams handed out brochures, pamphlets and books to everyone who would take them, and sophisticated video displays were everywhere.

The next event will be held from November 27-30, 2018.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Shanghai growth

Much was made of Auckland’s growth at the end of last year, with counts of 64 cranes dotted around the city (we can see 17 from our office alone). I counted 30 tower cranes on one building alone at Shanghai airport.


Getting around Shanghai

Taxis in Shanghai may be cheap, but you still can’t beat the Metro for economy. For between 60 and 80 cents, cross-city travel on the Shanghai Metro is fast and efficient. Rarely will you wait for more than a few minutes for a train. They’re spotlessly clean, all signs are in English, and ticket machines are in multiple languages with easy to follow route maps. The Maglev route which runs from the Airport and joins the Metro in the Pudong district (just one stop away from the Shanghai New International Expo Centre which hosts bauma) runs at 300kph for the eight-minute trip.

The Shanghai Metro is currently the largest city metro system by route length (nearly 600 kilometres), has 364 stations, and is still expanding. The first 4.4 kilometre-line opened in 1993 and by 2025 the system is planned to be around 1000 kilometres long. Nowhere in the CBD will be more than 600 metres from a Metro Station. With an average 10 million people using the Metro every work-day (over 3 billion rides per year), that still leaves another 14 million people on the roads each day. The roads are nothing like the Metro. When just crossing the road can be deemed an adrenaline-fuelled sport, trying to drive might just be a step too far for most.

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