International cooperation in cool events heating up

Themed "more internationalization, more specialization and more popularization", the recent World Winter Sports (Beijing) Expo aimed at providing a platform to deepen cooperation in the ice and snow industry, organizers said.

"With higher expectations of the 2022 Games, it's important to promote the high-quality development of winter sports," said Zhang Jiandong, vice-mayor of Beijing and executive vice-chairman of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winer Games.

"We hope that you can make full use of the platform of the expo, conduct in-depth discussions and exchanges, and extensively carry out practical cooperation in enterprise docking, project cooperation, personnel training, winter tourism, so as to achieve more fruitful results," he told participants at the annual expo, also known as the WWSE.

At the exhibition, a dry toilet, which can be used in low temperatures, attracted attention. Its ecological design makes it a fit for the upcoming Olympics site in Zhangjiakou.

"We cooperated with French company Sanisphere and put their technology into practice in China," said Sun Xin, project director of China Fishery Crony (Beijing) Leisure Culture Industry Development. "We also made the product more suitable for Chinese customers."

Mikko Salonen, an official of the Finnish Olympic Committee, said: "Sports is an important enabler of sustainable development. We think we can work with China to make a green Olympics."

Hanna Kosonen, the minister of science and culture in Finland, said: "As sustainability is one of the main themes of the upcoming 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Games, I see many future opportunities for long-term cooperation between our nations."

In the past, the ice and snow industry was concentrated in northern China, especially the three northeastern provinces. Nowadays, indoor and outdoor ice and snow sports in the south have become more popular, with some companies sensing the opportunities.

Guangzhou Dexin Sport Goods is one of them. Its business representative at the expo said the company used to produce ordinary eye glasses. However, with the opening of an artificial snow slope in Guangzhou, Guangdong province some 10 years ago, more residents began to demand snow goggles.

Thus the company developed snow goggles. For years the majority of its production went abroad, but now there is a large focus on domestic sales.

Finnish brand Reima specializes in children's winter suits.

"We opened the first store in Beijing a few years ago, and then expanded to nearly 30 across Xi'an, Jinan, Shanghai and other places. More children, especially in southern China, take part in ice and snow sports in winter camps," said Pan Qiting, marketing manager of Reima Trading Beijing.

In addition to exhibitions, organizers also arranged more than 20 forums and promotional events to promote the development of the ice and snow sports industry and facilitate business cooperation.

In June 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the General Administration of Sport and nine other departments jointly issued an action plan for the development of the ice and snow equipment industry (2019-22).

It is proposed that by 2022, the annual sales revenue of China's ice and snow equipment industry will exceed 20 billion yuan ($2.83 billion), with an average annual growth rate of more than 20 percent.

Xinhua

(China Daily 10/29/2019 page7)