The first edition of Mineral & Gem Asia at the AsiaWorld-Expo, Hong Kong, attracted more than 4,600 local and overseas visitors. UBM Asia, which owns and organized the event, said more than 1,900 of the visitors were trade buyers, including exhibitors and visitors from UBM Asia’s June Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair, which ran simultaneously with the mineral fair.
“The launch of Mineral & Gem Asia was an important milestone in UBM Asia’s fair history,” said Wolfram Diener, senior VP, UBM Asia. “It gave global buyers a platform to source effectively from suppliers from around the world without having to travel to many overseas shows.”
The fair featured 103 exhibitors from 27 countries and regions while the visitors came from 55 countries and regions in Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, Oceania, Middle East, Central, North and South America.
Rare and preserved fossils from the Stephen Hui Geological Museum of The University of Hong Kong were among the exhibits at the fair, including Permian invertebrate fossils and Jurassic and Tertiary plant fossils unearthed from Lantau Island and Dong Ping Chau in Hong Kong.
Both the Hong Kong Geological Museum and the Mineralogy Society of Hong Kong hosted onsite educational activities.
Christoph Keilmann, CEO of Mineralientage München Fachmesse GmbH, the fair organizer of The Munich Show, gave the new fair early praise, saying “it was an excellent start with the potential to become Asia's leading mineral show.”
Hong Kong-based visitors totaled 2,981. The largest group of visitors from outside Hong Kong came from mainland China (835); followed by Taiwan (126), India (83), Thailand (82), Japan (62) and Australia (41).
The fair included a showcase of three dinosaurs—Tyrannosaurus rex-King Kong, the Allosaurus and the Suuwassea—which were displayed to the public for the first time in Asia; along with a three-dimensional model of the Thermopolis Archaeopteryx and an Archaeopteryx fossil.
Six seminars discussed a variety of topics, including minerals, gemstones and gold specimen collecting.
The fair will be renamed Mineral, Gem & Fossil Asia and will be held June 25 – 28, 2016, at AsiaWorld-Expo. The June Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair, meanwhile, will be held June 23 – 26, 2016, at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre.
Holding the two fairs at the same time will enable gemstone exhibitors at the Hong Kong fair to attend the mineral and gem fair, UBM Asia said. In addition, there will be an enhanced advertising and promotion campaign to attract more trade buyers to the fair.
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