The going abroad effort of China’s sports industry from the perspective of China Sport Show

As the sole national level sporting goods exhibition and the biggest international and professional sporting goods exhibition in Asia Pacific, China Sport Show is gaining more attention from the world. Taking Korean exhibitors and visitors as an example, statistics show that 16 Korean companies signed up as exhibitors with a total booth area of 288 square meters in 2019. They hosted seven commercial events during the exhibition. The organizer invited three VIP buyers from Korea and 454 Korean visitors came to the exhibition. Korea Sports Promotion Foundation CEO Jae-kee Cho organized nine Korean companies as exhibitors to showcase their products at China Sport Show. Mr. Chopointed out during the interview that Chinese sporting goods industry has had a leap-forward development over the past few years and Korean companies can learn a lot from their Chinese counterparts.

 

As neighboring countries, China and Korea have frequent sports exchanges and as early as in 2007 there were Korean sporting equipment companies come to China Sport Show as exhibitors.

 

During the 12 years as a leader to coordinate Korean companies participating in China Sport Show, Mr. Cho has experienced the transformation of Chinese sports industry. The most impressive feature of Chinese sporting goods industry for him is how quickly Chinese companies can master new technologies and deliver diversified products. He believes that many achievements Chinese sporting goods industry has made are worthy of learning for Korean companies.
 

China, as a big marketplace, is where many Korean sporting equipment companies are eager to tap into. Some Chinese sporting equipment companies have formulated their going abroad plans. Korean sporting equipment companies come to China Sport Show as exhibitors and their Chinese counterparts are doing the same at SPOEXheld in Korea, and these platforms witness a high willingness of the companies of the two countries to collaborate. CSGF and Korea Sports Promotion Foundation have played important roles to promote the exchange and contacts between the two sporting goods industries of the two countries.

 

According to CSGF, with the further expansion of communication between Chinese and Korean sporting goods industries, more sporting equipment companies from the two countries will sign up as exhibitors to each other’s sporting goods fairs in the future.

 

With China’s social and economic development, Chinese people pay more attention to health and fitness and China’s mass sport event has experienced a flourish development, which is both an opportunity and a challenge for the sports industry. Mr. Cho pointed out that Korea had also gone through the transformation from elite sports as the leading force to elite sports and mass sports developing side by side. For Korean sporting equipment companies, the rise of mass sports calls for a big market growth, but the companies also needed to reinventthemselves. As elite sports had been steered the development of Korean sports for a long time and many local sporting equipment suppliers geared to it. They had faced many challenges in transforming themselves to meet the needs of elite and mass sports. Mr. Cho spoke from experience and offered some advices to Chinese sporting equipment companies for their development.

 

Apart from Korea Sports Promotion Foundation leading a team to participate in China Sport Show as exhibitors, over a thousand buyers and visitors from more than 80 countries and international regions, including Japan, the US, Canada, Australia, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil and India, came to the fair. The international influence of China Sport Show grows thanks to the big room of development in China’s sporting equipment market and the mushrooming Chinese sporting equipment industry.

 

(Correspondent: Ci Xin) Text source: China Youth Daily