Dispatches from around the globe

摘要

Since late October,the Coatings World staff has traveled from Nashville,TN to New Orleans,LA to Guangzhou,China and back home again.In this issue,we report the news that occurred at three major industry events including ChinaCoat 2006,the Federation of Societies for Coatings Technology's(FSCT)International Coatings Expo(ICE)2006 and the National Paint and Coatings Association's(NPCA)annual meeting.As China's economy continues to expand at astonishing rates,the Chinese coatings industry continues to grow as well.Industry experts place the Chinese coatings market at 3.35 million tons in 2005,compared to 1.84 million tons in 2000.That comes out to an incredible 82% growth,and there is no reason to expect that trend to slow down.With that in mind,it is obvious why ChinaCoat continues to enjoy excellent growth.ChinaCoat 2006 was another successful event in its series.A total of 518 direct exhibitors(representing 729 companies)exhibited at the show while the total number of visitors increased to 23,534.This figure is up from 2005 when ChinaCoat was held in Shanghai and attended by 21,273 visitors.As ChinaCoat's increase in size over the years reflects the impressive growth of China's coatings market,the show has undoubtedly proven to be the premier coatings event in Asia and second in size only to the European Coatings Show.