Geneva’s international expo of fine watches is switching to Shanghai on April 21 for a physical version after staging an online edition to keep the prestigious fair going during the pandemic. The Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, now restyled as Watches and Wonders, was canceled last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, with Europe battling a third wave of the pandemic, the fair – one of the major annual gatherings for luxury watchmakers – opened online on April 7, closing on April 20. But an in-person version will run from April 21 to 25 in Shanghai, where Covid-19 is under control. Several new products were already unveiled by some of the 38 brands participating on the salon’s digital platform. Chanel has produced watches in pop colors inspired by 1990s electro music; Rolex made a dial from a fragment of a meteorite, while Cartier has produced a watch strap from 40% plant material taken from waste apples. Nineteen brands will participate in the physical event in Shanghai.

The virtual version is “a great opportunity to learn”, Edouard Meylan, the head of luxury watchmaker H. Moser, said. Even once the crisis is over, online events will become more commonplace, he predicted. “It will never replace the salons and making contact in person,” he added. “But it is in tune with the times.” H. Moser produces around 1,500 pieces per year intended for collectors, which cost €31,800 on average. When Meylan realized that the pandemic was not going away any time soon, he invested in digital technology, shifting the brand into a new era. “We bought cameras, lights and set up a whole studio in the workshop, with decor. It looks like a movie set,” he said. That allowed them to produce slick content for Instagram and organize virtual tours of the factory. For Hermes Director Guillaume de Seynes the digital salon cannot quite replicate the traditional in-person set-up. The Parisian house set itself up in Geneva’s Batiment des Forces Motrices, a grand entertainment venue on the River Rhone, and let two young French artists create an installation featuring the flagship H08 model presented at the salon.

Jean-Daniel Pasche, President of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, is just happy the salon could be held in any format following a tough year for the industry. Switzerland’s third-largest export sector has been hit hard by the Covid-19 crisis, with boutiques shuttered due to virus control measures, and the collapse of the tourism industry on which the luxury sector depends. In 2020, Swiss watch exports fell by 21.8% to €15.8 billion compared with 2019. China became the biggest export market for Swiss watches in 2020 as exports to Hong Kong dropped by 36.9% and to the U.S. by 17.5%. China was the only major growth market for Swiss watchmakers, with exports up 20% to almost CHF2.4 billion, the Global Times reports. 

Several marathons in China’s major cities have abandoned foreign brands – including Adidas and ASICS – that  had incited outrage on Chinese social media for their discriminating stance against Xinjiang’s cotton. The organizers have replaced the brands with local ones as the provider of the runners’ resources such as T-shirts. The Shanghai Half Marathon – held on April 18 – which had originally appointed Adidas as the provider of the players’ resources, told its players no sports clothing would be promoted at this event. The organizers of the Xi’an Marathon on April 17 have replaced one of their brand partners ASICS with Xtep, a Chinese sportswear brand. Participants received a message saying that the organizers are not able to provide the clothing for the marathon before the event as the materials provided by ASICS cannot be used any more. ASICS was also ditched by the Wuxi Marathon, which was held in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, on April 11. According to a statement on April 1 by Hui Pao, a Chinese sports operating company, the Wuxi marathon has decided to terminate its cooperation with ASICS for the event, cancel its advertising rights and stop using all the materials and products of the brand.

None of the event organizers gave a specific reasons for replacing Adidas and ASICS, but it is widely known that it is due to the companies’ statements that they will not source cotton from Xinjiang. Adidas has been subject to boycotts in China after making statements discriminating cotton from Xinjiang, while the Japanese brand ASICS also enraged Chinese people for actions regarding this issue. “Chinese people should have a backbone. Our domestic products now are as good as and even better than international brands,” a Wuxi Marathon player, who asked not to be named, told the Global Times. “It is now the best time promoting a domestic sports brand.” 

As China’s domestic brands catch up with foreign brands in the Chinese market in terms of quality and marketing, they are emerging as stronger competitors to global brands and may eventually replace them as major sponsors, said Zhang Qing, CEO of Key Solution Sports Co., a consulting firm for the sports industry in China. “In selecting the sponsor for a public sports event, it is key to consider the brand’s reputation,” Zhang said. “When brands like Nike and Adidas have offended the public’s feeling, they are not likely to be chosen to represent the event.” According to Zhang, while foreign brands are losing ground among Chinese consumers over Xinjiang, domestic brands have been gaining market share for improved quality and design. For example, Anta Sports, a Chinese sportswear brand, accounted for 15.4% of total market share in 2020, ranking third after Nike and Adidas. Out of the top 10 biggest sportswear companies, four are Chinese brands, including Li-Ning, Xtep and 361 Degree, Zhang said, as reported by the Global Times.

The 8^th China (Shanghai) International Technology Fair, to be held from April 15 to 17 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center, will promote trade in cutting-edge technologies and focus on digital transformation. This year’s fair has attracted over a thousand enterprises as exhibitors, the largest number ever. There will be five major sections: sci-tech innovation, urban renewal, professional technology, innovation ecosystem, and trading services. The Shanghai Intellectual Property Service Center and the Shanghai Talent Service Industry Association will answer inquiries on technical achievements and offer intellectual property consultation and other services. The sci-tech innovation area will have zones for hot topics, including the Yangtze River Delta region, the Lingang special area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the construction of a sci-tech innovation center, technology transfer, private enterprises, overseas Chinese businesses, and universities.

The aim of the Fair is to display forward-looking and leading technological achievements and scientific research projects, and to facilitate their application and transformation, according to Zhou Lan, Deputy Director of the Organizing Committee. The Lingang zone will focus on displaying the area’s latest achievements in science and innovation with the aim of increasing its international influence. A total of 95 projects from 86 institutions related to the Yangtze River Delta region, digital economy, sci-tech innovation, technological expertise and international technology projects will be launched during the Fair. The 8^th China (Shanghai) International Technology Fair, will be held  both online and offline to allow overseas exhibitors to show their projects via cloud platforms.

In 2019 the fair attracted 916 top technology firms and trading service organizations from 16 countries and regions, with  some 58,200 visitors, 81.5% of whom were professionals, the Shanghai Daily reports. Artificial intelligence firms will be among those exhibiting their latest products. Appen China will be showing its 3D Point Cloud Annotation tool. It fuses any 3D sensor data with 2D camera images to build an intuitive annotation interface, allowing to create 3D annotations. Private enterprise DeepBlue Technology will present advanced products in intelligent driving, intelligent robots, biological intelligence and smart retailers. On display will be the DeepBlue Panda AI Bus, a luxury passenger vehicle equipped with AI technologies such as self-driving capabilities; and an unmanned AI sanitizing and industrial vacuum vehicle. Computer vision technology company Clobotics Co will showcase its intelligent solutions for the retail and wind power sectors. 

The removal and streamlining of approval procedures for certain foreign invested projects will attract and assist overseas companies while benefiting overall investment this year, experts and industry insiders said. In a recently released guideline, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said that foreign-invested projects under USD30 million will no longer need to file for approval. Also, approval for projects over USD30 million and under USD300 million will be handed from ministerial-level authorities to provincial-level ones. The projects must be in industries covered by China’s Catalogue of Industries for Encouraging Foreign Investment. Researchers and insiders believe the step will further boost China’s ability to attract foreign investment as procedures are eased and the role of lower-level governments is increased. Guo Meixin, Senior Researcher at the Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking at Tsinghua University, said the move will not only cut red tape for overseas businesses, but also encourage provincial-level governments to work more closely with the NDRC.

Guo said based on the center’s research, most of the foreign-invested projects under USD30 million and which qualify under the catalogue are small and medium-sized ones in scientific and technological research, software and manufacturing. Projects below USD30 million are relatively small and those between USD30 million and USD300 million are more likely to be medium-sized ones, she added. Guo said providing more power of approval to provincial-level governments will incentivize them to develop potential foreign projects. The guideline made clear that for projects between USD30 million and USD300 million, the potential investor will be allowed to directly file the application with provincial-level authorities. “Provincial-level governments, more often than not, know more specifics of these investment projects than the NDRC,” she said. 

The changes are part of the country’s broader efforts to let the market play a more decisive role in allocating resources by cutting institutional costs for foreign businesses and building a level-playing field, Guo added. Tu Xinquan, Dean of the China Institute for WTO Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, believes the steps are part of China’s overall efforts to boost investment this year. “As economic recovery is gradually gathering pace and a certain amount of investment is needed to sustain growth momentum for the wider economy, the encouragement of foreign investment is an important step,” Tu said. Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that from January to February the value of fixed asset investment stood at CNY4.52 trillion, a 25% year-on-year increase and up 3.5% from 2019, the China Daily reports. 

China’s foreign trade is expected to sustain its upward momentum seen during the first quarter, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said. A recent survey conducted by the Ministry of more than 20,000 export-oriented companies across China showed that they held more orders than in the first quarter a year ago. Many of them believe that they have benefited from the country’s policies, including tax and fee cuts, export rebates and other trade facilitation measures. However, a number of companies said that there are still several uncertainties for their businesses this year. There are risks such as the impact of Covid-19, the instability of the international industrial and supply chains, and the complexity of the global environment.

MOFCOM Spokesman Gao Feng said that in terms of expanding imports, the Ministry will continue to cooperate with the Ministry of Finance and other relevant departments to optimize and adjust import tax policies in order to promote import of high-quality products and services. “In the meantime, the country will continue to highlight the leading role of the national import demonstration zones to boost the imports of advanced technology, equipment and services, import more products related to the people’s livelihood, and support the growth of new import formats”. In the Hainan Free Trade Port, a number of products and commodities can be traded subject to zero or low tariffs, said Liang Ming, Researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation. As long as global trade maintains a healthy growth, China will further cut import tariffs and try to seal more free trade deals with various partners, he said. Apart from cutting import tax, China has been working with 14 other partners to ratify the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement before the end of this year and push for it to take effect on January 1, 2022.