The Computex trade show attracted 34,658 international buyers this year, a rise of 5 percent from a year ago, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會), co-organizer of the event, said yesterday.
Buyers this year came mostly from the US, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and China. US buyers accounted for the single largest group at 14.71 percent.
“The number of buyers from emerging countries such as China and Russia saw the most significant increase this year,” TAITRA vice executive president Walter Yeh (葉明水) said at a press conference held yesterday to mark the close of the five-day expo.
Chinese buyers ranked fifth and accounted for 5.47 percent of the total number of buyers this year, with around 2,000 buyers.
Russia ranked 10th with 287 buyers during the first three days of the show, Yeh said.
To help local exhibitors land more contracts, TAITRA arranged more than 2,000 one-on-one procurement talks on Tuesday and Wednesday, inviting more than 113 companies from 32 countries to meetings that generated US$200 million in business in two days.
“These procurement meetings are special services to our international buyers that make their trips more efficient,” Yeh said.
Among those 113 companies, the most popular product was global positioning systems (GPS). In addition, a lot of companies showed strong interest in low-cost PCs, liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs and internet communication products, TAITRA’s press release said.
Looking ahead, TAITRA said it hoped the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Nangang line would be opened by next year’s Computex fair, scheduled to be held between June 2 and June 6, to facilitate transportation between the Taipei World Trade Center Xinyi and Nangang facilities.
In regards to plans to expand the Nangang Exhibition Hall, Yeh said TAITRA would continue to utilize the four completed exhibition halls and other nearby facilities in the next three years, as the expansion to the Nangang hall is not expected to be finished until 2012.
Yeh said that Computex could generate US$20 billion in orders this year for local suppliers, up from US$15 billion last year.
Taiwanese companies traditionally obtain a substantial share of their annual orders through Computex. Last year, one-third to one-half of total orders for the year, valued at US$25 billion to US$37.55 billion, were made through the trade show, he said.
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