(Yicai) July 26 -- As the countdown begins for this year’s China International Import Expo, UK luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover, US tech conglomerate Honeywell and smart building solutions provider Johnson Controls are among more than 30 overseas companies that have already booked a place at the 2025 CIIE.

Jaguar Land Rover, Honeywell, Johnson Controls as well as UK professional services networks KPMG and Deloitte, and 30 other firms have confirmed their attendance at the 8th CIIE next November, signing up for exhibition areas covering more than 20,000 square meters, Yicai learned from a signing ceremony yesterday held on the day that the 100-day countdown to this year’s CIIE begins.

The organization of the 7th CIIE, which will be spread over more than 360,000 sqm, is progressing faster than last year’s, and so the organizers have already started to invite exhibitors for next year’s expo, Sun Chenghai, deputy director of the CIIE Bureau, said at the signing ceremony.

Johnson Controls, which has participated in the CIIE for the past six years, will display its latest smart equipment and other new products at its 300-square-meter booth this year, said Jiang Wei, the director of the firm’s marketing department in the Asia-Pacific region.

Demand for Johnson Controls’ equipment in China’s commercial buildings market is waning, but demand in the industrial field is rising, so the Cork-based company’s research and development base in Wuxi will bring in new product mixes to carve out new opportunities in the advanced manufacturing sector, Jiang said.

The CIIE’s innovation incubation zone will focus on the digital economy as well as the green, low-carbon, life science and manufacturing sectors this year to provide global start-ups with more co-operation opportunities in China as well as additional scientific and technological resources, Sun said.

This year’s innovation incubation zone will have more exhibitors than last year. The zone was set up at the fourth CIIE to promote global tie-ups and to transform scientific and technological achievements. More than 500 overseas innovations have been unveiled at this zone so far.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Kim Taylor