Show Diary - CPCA day two - 12th March

More from Shanghai - after a bad start to my day, some interesting equipment developments and plenty of visitors…This morning started badly - It was raining, so I decided to take a cab to the show. Needing to send a large file I planned to drop into the business center at the Tai Ping Sheraton Hotel first. The Sheraton in about 100 yards from the halls and a five minute walk from my hotel. Having told the doorman my destination, I jumped into the cab. After ten minutes I realised we were going the wrong way and the taxi driver spoke less English than I spoke Chinese. So I arrived at a different Sheraton only to ask the doorman here to re-route my cab back to the right destination - turning a five minute walk in the rain into a 35 minute taxi ride…Arriving on the show floor a little after the show opened immediately lifted my spirits, the rain had not kept the visitors away, and a couple of Americans commented to me that they had forgotten what full aisles looked like, not to mention what customers with orders to place looked like…My mission this morning was to find out what the situation is with locally built equipment. I have looked at this before and had found the locally supplied stuff way behind the standard of western equipment - but had things improved. The last two years at CPCA had shown up equipment that looked dangerous to handle, yet alone use.What are the Chinese buying?My first discussion was with the Managing Director of a PCB company active in Hong Kong and China. As well as having a successful business in HK, he is a good way through the development of new one million square foot plant in China. I wanted to know about his equipment buying philosophy.I started by asking him about the equipment he had purchased so far. He ran off a list of impressive kit including German and American machines. He told me that when he chose his drilling systems he narrowed it down to Schmoll and Hitachi, before finally choosing Schmoll because of the quality of their local support…The supplier went on to tell me of the huge respect he had for European and US equipment, explaining it was the only way to go, if they were to produce the quality they wanted…It appears that just as China is a threat to western board producers it is a huge opportunity to western suppliers. However, if you are not here yet, time is of the essence. People are selecting the vendors that will supply the future of the world's PCB production. The importance of this kind of event can not be overstated. Testament to this is the number of companies taking part here, but not planning to visit IPC Expo later this month…My next meeting was with a domestic supplier of photoplotters. He told how they had around 80% of the domestic market and had sold over 800 machines. He also told me how they had set up operations in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, hoping to begin to export the equipment. It seemed that, although the product was obviously sound - you don't ship 800 units without getting something right, and the price was clearly good, they had not plans to sell into Europe or USA. It all seemed to be too far away for them to consider. You also have to wonder why they would bother, and what the potential market for plotters is in the USA is in 2003, compared with China. Doubtless, some bright agent will come across them and their plotter, with entry pricing around $25,000, will reach Europe or the USA.Tonight, CPCA have invited the press and international visitors on a boat trip, so until tomorrow, that's all from Shanghai…More tomorrow on EMSNow…