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The event, scheduled for April 25 to 28, has been postponed because of the current “COVID-19 situation and tightening of pandemic control measures in Shanghai,” said show organizer Adsale.

Stephen Moore

March 18, 2022

2 Min Read
Chinaplas postponed poster
Image courtesy of Adsale

I first started suspecting something was amiss around Wednesday of this week, when I started receiving e-mails from Chinaplas organizer Adsale touting its online CPS+ eMarketplace linking buyers in the plastics industry with 4,000+ technology makers across the spectrum of the plastics industry. And then, as I was winding down at my desk at around 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon in Singapore, the news flashed across my screen: Chinaplas 2022 has been officially postponed.

In recent weeks, the tech hub of Shenzhen has been in lockdown, with partial manufacturing activity allowed to resume. Apple supplier Foxconn halted operations but has since proposed a plan to resume production. The north-eastern province of Jilin, home to a sizeable auto industry, is also in lockdown. And the commercial hub Shanghai, this year’s Chinaplas host, is pushing ahead with mass testing of millions of residents after symptomatic local community infections hit 57 on March 17, with another 203 domestically transmitted asymptomatic cases, up from eight and 150, respectively, a day earlier.

Although these numbers sound minuscule compared to the experience of most of the rest of the world, China is pursuing a so-called “Dynamic Zero” strategy toward COVID 19, described as “a transitional strategy to be adopted after a successful containment strategy, when the population’s immunity barrier is not yet established in the face of continued risk of foreign importation and high transmission of variants.” The core is to “take effective and comprehensive measures to deal with localized COVID-19 cases precisely, to quickly cut off the transmission chain, and to end the epidemic in a timely manner.”

The challenge that China faces according to international experts is that its cornerstone Sinovac-CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine is less effective than mRNA vaccines developed offshore, and China is unwilling to certify overseas vaccines for domestic use, almost as a matter of pride. It remains to be seen how effective the Dynamic Zero approach will prove to be, and exactly when China will reopen its doors to international visitors.

Adsale said, however, that new dates for Chinaplas will be announced shortly.

About the Author(s)

Stephen Moore

Stephen has been with PlasticsToday and its preceding publications Modern Plastics and Injection Molding since 1992, throughout this time based in the Asia Pacific region, including stints in Japan, Australia, and his current location Singapore. His current beat focuses on automotive. Stephen is an avid folding bicycle rider, often taking his bike on overseas business trips, and is a proud dachshund owner.

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