Welcome to China Fish 2005

China International Fishing Tackle Trade & Exhibition (China Fish) has journeyed for 15 years and today the 15th session of China Fish is being held again in Beijing’s China International Trade Centre.? I’d like to, on behalf of all the staff members of the organizing committee, extend our warm welcome to guests from more than 60 countries and regions all over the world.
We are all enthusiastic to see the number of pre-registered overseas traders, the number of domestic exhibitors, the number of overseas exhibitors, and the area of the booths all surpassing those of previous sessions.? The original exhibition hall could not meet the demand and so an additional hall, Hall E, had to be developed to increase the total floor space of the 2005 show to 14,200 m2.? This clearly demonstrates the growth and interest in China’s fishing tackle industry.?

While it is indeed a pleasure to see the rapid growth and development of fishing tackle enterprises, China’s fishing tackle industry faces many new challenges to sustain this growth.? Intellectual property, for one, will be a focus for attention for many of China’s fishing tackle enterprises.

As early as 2001 at China’s accession to WTO, China made a commitment to implement the international standard on intellectual property. Of the fishing tackle enterprises in China, there are many medium and small-sized enterprises and family enterprises, that were and some are still unaware of trademarks, patent and intellectual property issues.? This results in infringement on other countries’ products by China’s enterprises and also on China’s enterprises’ protection of their own products.? Those few fishing tackle enterprises in China who imitate products of others will soon learn quickly about these issues when they find themselves with legal problems, and thereafter may no longer exist!??

Chinese fishing tackle enterprises need to learn to protect their intellectual property rights as well.? In addition to strengthening awareness of trademarks, patent and intellectual property, Chinese enterprises need to properly document their own intellectual property and/or develop their enterprises by cooperating with foreign patent-owners thru patent transfer and patent authorization.?

Recently, Chinese enterprises have become aware of the importance of protecting the intellectual property of their customers and now realize this is critical to the survival of their enterprises!? We noticed in the 2003 China Fish show, that Chinese manufacturers of fishing tackle determined to protect the interest of their customers by setting up small negotiation rooms in their booths. When asked the reason for these rooms, their replies were that they were protecting their products and their customers products.? A float manufacturer sealed up their customer’s samples to protect the intellectual property of the customer’s products. Access to these samples was only permitted by high-level personnel.

Another challenge to the growth of Chinese Manufacturers is the European Union (EU).? In addition to the 15 member states, on May 2004, ten more countries have joined the EU.? They are Malta, Cyprus, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.?

The ten new members have favorable conditions for shifting “Made in China” labels to “Made in Europe” labels.? One of the characteristics of the EU is to actively develop regional trade. The present trade volume among members of the EU has reached 60% and this growth will likely increase.? A major reason for growth is that the labor cost of the new membership countries is much lower than that of the old membership countries.? The average labor cost of Hungary, for example is 1/6th the labor rate of the original 15 membership.? This lower cost of labor in the new EU members will likely move manufacturing to the new membership countries.? There are suggestions by some that products and the associated intellectual property of the products, if made by fellow EU members will not be at risk as if they were manufactured outside of Europe.? If this is to be believed, higher priced items may also be more likely to move to the EU countries.? Large orders for low priced, low value-added products with less intellectual property values would likely remain in China.

A second reason why products may shift to EU countries is due to the obsolete equipment and poor processing capacity has often caused low quality of Chinese products.? A third reason is that sufficient quanties supplies of quality raw materials and accessories for Chinese manufacturers has been often difficult to meet.?

In order to help locate new and modern manufacturing equipment, supplies and accessories, a new show is being planned in Weihai, China.? On September 10th-13th, the 1st China International Fishing Tackle Manufacture Equipment & Supply Show (www.ciftmes.com) will be held at the Weihai International Fishing Tackle Market.? Because over 200 fishing tackle manufacturers are located in Weihai, it is logical that Weihai’s International Fishing Tackle Market lead in providing new fishing tackle manufacturing equipment, raw materials and accessories.? Undoubtedly, this will help the progress of China’s fishing tackle industry and be a counter to the possible EU growth mentioned earlier.

China’s fishing tackle industry IS becoming more aware of trademarks, patent and intellectual property and IS working to improve product development and quality control.? These improvements are enabling China’s enterprises to compete even more successfully in the world’s marketplace for both low end and higher end fishing tackle products.? We hope and believe traders and manufacturers will meet at China Fish 2005 and will build more trusted relationships to develop both low cost and higher quality products for the world’s fishing tackle marketplace.