China’s newly formed Ministry of Information Industry (MII) will co-host its first major trade show, ChinaInet/Internet World ’99, from May 18-20.
The conference and exhibition are being organized by the Beijing Internet Institute in association with Penton Media, who recently acquired Mecklermedia’s Internet World trade show series.
MII oversees China’s information technology, telecommunication, and software industries and provides research, industrial strategy, policy guidance and overall planning facilities to these sectors.
The former chief of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, Wu Jichuan, heads the MII, which currently has around 320 employees in 13 functional bureaus.
“The most important thing for this show is that the Ministry of Information Industry will deliver policies for the next century describing how they will promote commercial application of the Internet in China,” said Jie Liang, director of the Beijing Internet Institute. “The Chinese Government wants this event to be a platform for the Chinese Internet community to learn new technologies.”
According to Jie, the conference will have 3,000 participants and 20,000 people are expected to attend the exhibition.
Jie estimated that 100 companies would participate with around two thirds coming from foreign countries.
“The show will be the largest pure Internet business to business event ever held in China,” said Jie.
A Penton spokesperson said, “we expect Internet World China to become one of our largest international trade shows.”