The forthcoming Aquatech China exhibition, which will take place on June 15-17 in Shanghai, is to host a forum run by Global Water Intelligence to provide visitors with insights into the growing opportunities in industrial water and wastewater treatment and management in the country. This new event, the Industrial Water Leaders Forum, will be held on the second day of the exhibition, taking place at the National Exhibition and Convention Center.
China has stepped up its action on industrial pollution, particularly through the country’s ‘Water Ten Plan’ legislation introduced last year. Faced with the prospect of more severe financial penalties for polluting and even jail sentences, industries are responding with investment in their water and wastewater systems. As part of the biggest program ever at Aquatech China, the Industrial Water Leaders Forum will give participants information on the impacts of the legislation and the requirements of key industrial sectors affected by it.
Speakers will include regulators as well as end user representatives of some of the main industrial sectors of interest (coal to chemicals, petrochemicals, steel, coal fired power stations, textiles and food and beverage), which require advanced technologies in order for wastewaters to be dealt with effectively. This free public forum will be followed by a dedicated session of one-to-one meetings that will provide technology suppliers with an opportunity to meet Chinese end users.
Recent changes in the economy in China mean Chinese companies are increasingly interested in developing their businesses internationally and this will be the focus of an additional special seminar. “Chinese companies have started to make some extraordinarily well-funded acquisitions overseas,” said Christopher Gasson of GWI. “The seminar will allow Chinese companies to learn about the acquisition and growth opportunities in the rest of the world. In the last year or so, the situation has changed both in terms of the traffic of Chinese companies looking outside of the country and in terms of foreign companies seeing new opportunities in China. This whole area of interchanges between China and the rest of the world is really coming alive this year in a way that it hasn’t for some time. We felt that putting on the Industrial Water Leaders Forum at Aquatech China would be a really good opportunity to facilitate that interchange.”