On June 19, the Municipal Government of Xiamen introduced a new plan, Measures to Promote the Development of the Convention and Exhibition Industry.

The plan is aimed at substantially increasing support for the convention and exhibition industry, in order to promote growth of the industry, to make it an important platform for integrating traditional and dominant industries and to build Xiamen into an exhibition and trading center for traditional products, a product research and design center, the biggest product pricing and industry standards center in the cross-strait region or even in all of China.

Compared to support policies introduced in 2011, the new policies significantly increased efforts to support the exhibition industry in three aspects.

First of all, the award standards are doubled. The maximum award amount for regular exhibitions is increased from 500,000 yuan to 1 million yuan; for exhibitions aimed at the Taiwan market, it is increased from 200,000 yuan to 400,000 yuan; and for tour exhibitions of Taiwan products, it is increased from 1 million yuan to 2 million yuan.

Second, three awards are introduced: special award for traditional exhibition, award for increment and award for newly introduced large exhibition organizations. The special award for traditional exhibition will give exhibitions in 10 key areas a 30 percent special award on top of regular awards; the award for increment will give support to exhibitions that have used up their times for regular awards according to the expanding part of the exhibition area; while the award for newly introduced large exhibition organizations will subsidize newly introduced exhibition companies to help them buy or rent office space.

Third, conditions for applying for the awards are lowered. For business conferences, the standard for application is lowered from 500 rooms/ each day at five-star hotels to 500 rooms/ each day at four-star hotels, while for academic conferences the standard is reduced from 500 rooms/ each day at five-star hotels to 500 rooms/ each day at three-star hotels.