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Asia proves big business

07/08/2014

The BPA’s debut at one of the world’s largest nursery trade shows, CBME Shanghai in July, exceeded all expectations for the participants with the group arriving home with well over 1000 business leads between just eight companies.

Robert Anslow, BPA managing director, comments: “Attending CBME was a brave step for everyone involved as the Chinese market was an unknown entity and not only posed language barriers but a completely different business culture too. However, the show was outstanding. I have never seen so many buyers at a trade show before, they were literally queuing to get onto the stands and luckily, with the help of interpreters, business was brisk all round.”

Richard Naylor of Harrison Spinks Baby, one of the companies which took advantage of the generous UKTI TAP grants offered to support SMEs to exhibit in China, said: “What a show, what a country and what an opportunity! I took the decision to exhibit at CBME China with no real expectations of what might lie ahead. My intention was to try and understand the market better and to make the right type of distribution contracts so that I could start to form a strategic business plan for the Chinese market. In this regard, the show was a fantastic success and I left China with a very positive outlook for the potential of this enormous marketplace.”

Michaela Altman of Obaby, which also exhibited, added: “We were delighted to be part of the UK Pavilion at CBME this year, with visitors from China and beyond keen to discuss business with us, many of which we don’t have the opportunity to meet at European trade shows. We were extremely impressed with the quality of distributors and retailers that we spoke to and look forward to expanding the Obaby brand further into Asia.”

Jim Shaikh, CEO of yoomi, concludes: “The show was a fantastic success and yoomi was so pleased to be part of the UK Pavilion. We were extremely impressed with the significant interest shown from the very start.”

CBME Shanghai is definitely a firm date in the BPA’s diary for 2015 from 22^nd to 24^th July - and if the rave reviews of participants this year are anything to go by, the UK Pavilion will be bigger with considerably more BPA members seeking to get involved. As a UKTI Trade Challenge Partner, the association is committed to helping UK companies to explore new high growth markets including organising funding to help make that possible. This year all exhibitors received individual grants of £3,000 and we are hopeful that there will be similar funding next year. Further information can be found on the BPA’s website at www.thebpa.eu .

Booking for CBME Shanghai 2015 will open this October.

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