Event Summary:

The U.S. Commercial Service provided support to the U.S. Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) in organizing the CONEXPO 2006 show from May 15 to 18 in Beijing, China. During show, the U.S. Commercial Service, through our Asia Now program, provided American companies with face-to-face business counselling by our construction equipment specialists from across Asia and across China.

As part of the Asia Now program, FCS commercial specialists from India, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines and FCS Beijing's State Department partnership post in Mongolia recruited 150 international delegates/buyers to participate in this new show. In addition, the 10 U.S. Commercial Service officers and specialists (6 from Asia and 4 from China) provided 125 business counseling sessions to the 45 American exhibitors during the course of this exhibition.

In support of CONEXPO, DCM David Sedney hosted a May 14 reception in honor of AEM and their first-ever CONEXPO Asia exhibition. On May 15, concurrent AEM Chairman and Caterpillar Chairman Gerry Shaheen, SCO Craig Allen and numerous Chinese VIPs opened the CONEXPO show. On May 16, SCO Allen hosted a lunch for FCS-recruited delegates and the FCS commercial specialists.

This was truly a team effort to organize this FCS China Asian Now program (only FCS China's 2nd Asian Now program) and a special thanks goes to all of our FCS Beijing and FCS Washington colleagues who worked so hard to make this event a success.