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| Basilios Triantafillos, global director of Deutsche Messe AG, speaks during a press conference at the Plaza Seoul hotel in central Seoul, Tuesday. Korea Times photo by Baek Byung-yeul |
By Baek Byung-yeul
The Hannover Messe 2023, an annual manufacturing industry-focused trade fair, will focus on technologies for digitization and sustainability and highlight efforts to tackle climate change and global supply chain disruptions, an official from the German event organizer said Tuesday.
"The Hannover Messe is a worldwide leading fair. Digitization and sustainability are the main drivers and topics of this year's fair," Basilios Triantafillos, global director of Deutsche Messe AG, told reporters during a press conference in Seoul.
This year's event will be held in Hannover from April 17 to 21. The event organizer expects over 100,000 visitors and 4,000 exhibitors will participate in order to explore how to reduce their energy use and achieve digitization to produce products more efficiently.
"Digitization and sustainability are the main drivers for each company," the director said stressing the importance of looking closer at production processes to help companies overcome the challenges they face.
About 70 Korean companies including LS Electric will join the event. The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) and the Korea Association of Machinery Industry (KOAMI) will also support small and medium-sized companies to set up promotional booths at the fair.
The trade fair has been disrupted for the last three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the director added they are very confident that this year's event will be a success.
"The last three years affected us very heavily because the main aspect of our event is bringing people together, and we've had no possibility to do that. This affects, of course, the business that we're doing. Nevertheless, we're very confident. We need to be humble and patient," he said.
The fair has chosen a partner country for each event, shedding light on its industries. For this year's event, Triantafillos said Indonesia will feature as the partner country.
Indonesia President Joko Widodo will also take part in the fair to promote the country's national project named Making Indonesia 4.0, its strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution era.
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