Quick takes
Canton Fair cancelled, but venue in Shenyang venue will open
There was some good and bad news from China this week. The Canton Fair (finally) officially announced that the Spring Edition will be postponed. New dates have yet to be announced. The original dates were 15th April to 5th May.
However in northern China, Shenyang New World Expo, stated that the venue has received approval from the Liaoning provincial government to begin hosting exhibitions again. The first one will be organised by Shanghai Modern on 27th to 29th April. Fingers crossed that this is the first of many announcements like this.
Shenyang New World Expo website
Softbank to sell part of its stake in Alibaba
After his WeWork disaster, Masayoshi Son will sell up to US$41 billion in assets including about US$14 billion of Softbank’s stake in Alibaba – that amounts to about 10% of the company long-time stake in Alibaba.
UFI updates its economic impact estimate of COVID-19
UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry, estimates that US$145 billion in contracts will not be concluded as a result of events not taking place due to COVID-19.