As China becomes increasingly dominant in the global marketplace, it should perhaps come as no surprise that the exact nature of China’s involvement in commerce is shifting, with growth in yet uncharted territories. China has managed to transform itself into a truly international player.  
If the figures that are emerging ahead of the 2010 International IPEX exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham are anything to go by, China is now one of just two or three countries, alongside the USA and Japan, which today can claim true global status in the printing industry.  
While the Chinese presence in global printing has clearly sky-rocketed over the last few years, for manyChina printing manufacturers, IPEX 2010 will be their second or third show. It doesn’t only demonstrate the importance of IPEX as an arrivals lounge in the global printing industry but also highlight the exhibition’s growing importance as somewhere to go to hold on to and build-upon existing market share.    
IPEX is now a truly global show and the Chinese are very important exhibitors of the printing industry, as we have seen recently with 
the Shanghai Electric and Goss International tie-up. Chinese companies now can be considered serious players in the market.    
It is clear that IPEX represents an invaluable platform for international print companies looking to explore global markets, and of course it also reveals the influential role of Britain as something 
of an international staging-post. So that’s how the Chinese and other global companies regard IPEX.  
For the moment at least, it looks as if the Chinese seem to be most sure of themselves in the large-scale commercial print and post-print categories, but perhaps it won’t be too long before the Chinese are making more serious inroads into digital printing as well.