China: major textile fairs in March postponed
As China eases constraints for international visitors, China's major textile and clothing fairs are postponing their March 2023 edition. The Chic clothing trade fair and the Intertextile fabric event, initially scheduled from March 8 to 10, will instead be held from March 28 to 30 in Shanghai.
This postponement "gives local and foreign exhibitors and visitors enough time to plan their trade fairs and take advantage of the many international business opportunities offered by the reopening of the Chinese border", says Wilmet Shea, deputy general manager of Intertextile Messe Frankfurt, together with CCPIT-Tex, the Chinese textile sub-council.
From January 8, foreign travellers will no longer face the series of tests and quarantines previously in place when entering China, in line with the "zero Covid" strategy. This strategy has long been applied by Beijing, but after a fatal fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, at the end of November, it met with growing local resistance.
The announcement of this postponement comes at a time when many countries are introducing health restrictions on travellers from China. The country has been experiencing a new wave of infections since December. The United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Italy and Spain are demanding negative tests before departure. And the European Union could take measures at continental level.
The health situation had led the major Chinese trade fairs to postpone several times and cancel their various seasonal events in 2022, both in Shanghai and in Shenzhen, where the last editions scheduled respectively in October and November were cancelled at the end of September. All of this against the backdrop of the contraction of local manufacturing activity, which lasted until December.
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