Macau to host large electronics fair next year, eyeing tech hub

Macau will be staging a new large-scale electronics fair that aims to compete with renowned international consumer electronics fair Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which is hosted annually in Las Vegas.
The news broke first on technology media outlet TechCrunch, which reported last week that a CES competitor will be hosted in 2021 in Macau.
According to the source, at the helm of the project is Lu Gang, founder of Chinese tech media company TechNode, and local venture capitalist Jason Ho Kin Tung, who is also the son of Macau’s current Chief Executive, Ho Iat Seng.
The event will be co-organized by local government and non-government entities and backed by the Guangdong provincial government, with the aim of making it a Greater Bay Area (GBA) event.
Unlike the event in Las Vegas, the fair which will debut in Macau next year will not focus on consumer and enterprise-related electronics. Instead, it will feature more government-oriented electronics, Ho told TechCrunch.
Ho added that the fair aims to invite companies from across the globe that specialize in social and environmental technology, life sciences, advanced technology, and new infrastructure such as 5G, smart cities, and transportation-related technology.
“Macau has very good infrastructure [to host the event]. With the entertainment industry and the hotels, I think it’s very suitable for doing an event that could potentially attract people to join,” Ho was quoted saying to TechCrunch, adding, “I think Macau can be a platform that could help other countries to get into mainland China or even mainland China companies to [have] access to Asia-Pacific or Middle Eastern countries.”
One of the bigger advantages Macau has in bridging China with the rest of the world is its “geopolitical neutrality.”
“I always had a big dream that we [Macau] could [one day] compare ourselves with Singapore,” Ho said, adding that this is a possibility as the local government is currently working to introduce more policies to attract foreign investment and the establishment of more overseas businesses.
For Ho, Macau now has a better opportunity to establish itself in the field of technology and in the meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) sector. Recent political tensions in neighboring Hong Kong have dragged away several technology-related events, such as Asia’s largest tech conference “Rise,” which relocated its upcoming event to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Concurrently, events such as CES Asia, hosted in the city of Shanghai, have also been canceled due to the US-China trade war, facts that lead the local organizer to believe that opportunities should arise for Macau to attract attendees from Asia’s tech community and others with an interest in China.
Named “Beyond,” the electronics fair is currently scheduled to take place around mid-June next year, although the organizers are assuming that the date may change with developments in the Covid-19 situation and the related border control measures in the upcoming months.
The organizers lifted the veil on some of the corporations and entities that are likely to participate in the event, with the list including names such as Alibaba, ByteDance (mother company of TikTok), BMW, DJI, Foxconn, SenseTime and Tencent. Others include several provincial governments from the Mainland and neighboring regions.