Paris/Hong Kong, 27th August: UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, released the 15th edition of its annual report, the Trade Fair Industry in Asia. As usual, the report covers 17 markets including Greater China and Southeast Asian markets, Australia, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, India, Myanmar and Pakistan. The report provides detailed data and analysis on the development of trade fairs and supporting facilities in these markets up to 31st December 2018. The report also features additional statistics and commentary on likely trends for the coming year.

According to the report, net space sold at Asian trade fairs reached 23.4 million net m2 in 2018, which represents an average growth rate of 4.8% across all 17 Asian trade fair markets that are featured in the report.

Research shows that 23.4 million m2 of space was sold by exhibition organisers to their clients in Asia in 2018 – up from 22.3 m2 in 2017. More than half of the regional total (59%) was sold in China – representing 13.7 million m2 in net space. That figure is well over six times the space sold in Asia’s second-largest trade fair market, Japan (2.15 million m2).

One of the smallest markets, Cambodia was the fastest-growing trade fair market in the region in 2018, as space sold there jumped by over 40%. Once again, India was the fastest-growing large market as net space sold increased by 10%, rising from 1.18 million m2 to 1.3 million m2.

Other Southeast Asian markets that outperformed the regional average included Malaysia (7.7%), Vietnam (6.4%) and Singapore (5.4%). Other large, mature markets including Korea, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan posted growth in the low single digits in 2018.

For more information on this report, please contact UFI in Asia at: asia@ufi.org