Foshan expo to promote Internet Plus strategy

Internet Plus, a new business model combining the Internet and traditional industries, will be held in Foshan, Guangdong province from Sept 10-12.

More than 300 enterprises have signed up, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Sina Corp, Baidu Inc, Huaiwei Technology Co Ltd, ZTE Corp and other leaders in the Internet industry.

The expo is divided into nine sections: state-of-the-art technologies, intelligent manufacturing, Internet finance, intelligent home appliances, smart city, cross-border e-commerce, intelligent logistics, mass entrepreneurship and robotics.

The State Council initiated the strategy earlier this year promoting the use of the Internet in business sectors to upgrade traditional industries and boost the development of emerging ones.

Foshan is a manufacturing base in the Pearl River Delta and thus chooses Internet Plus manufacturing as its main focus in industrial transformation and upgrading, according to Zhou Peishan, deputy director of the city's science and technology bureau.

Leading enterprises based in Foshan such as flavoring producer Haday, gas appliance manufacturer Vanward and aluminum product maker Jinlan will display their achievements in areas of intelligent manufacturing and home appliances.

A world expo of robots will also be held in conjunction with the expo. About 100 producers from home and abroad, including giants such as ABB from Switzerland, KUKA from Germany and FANUC and YASKAWA from Japan will attend from Sept 10-13.

Chinese and German scientists will also have a seminar on the national plan Made in China 2025, designed to make China a world manufacturing powerhouse, and Industry 4.0, a hi-tech strategic plan raised by the German government.

"Foshan has an edge in the manufacturing industry and hopes to speed up upgrading by organizing the Internet Plus expo. Also, we want to encourage more start-ups in the Internet industry and boost the development of the modern service sector," said Zhang Qingyun, deputy director of the city's bureau of economy and information technology.

According to Zhang, Foshan started applying the Internet to traditional business sectors early, introducing a State-level key cloud computing platform in 2012 that has attracted nearly 20,000 local enterprises to use the service.

With much experience to share, Foshan is competent to be the country's first to hold an Internet Plus expo, he added.

"Internet Plus is an idea not only new to China but also to many other countries. The expo will stimulate beneficial discussion in this field in the world," said Cai Yile, deputy director of the exhibition department at the Guangdong branch of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.