Shanghai to hold air mobility industry expo

The first Advanced Air Mobility Expo is set to take place in July next year in Shanghai, aiming to build a platform for industrial communication and boost the nation's development in the low-altitude economy, said the expo's organizers at a news conference in Shanghai on Tuesday.

Hosted by the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), Donghao Lansheng (Group) and the Shanghai International Exhibition (Group) Co Ltd, the expo will be held from July 23 to 26. With a planned exhibition area of more than 100,000 square meters, the expo expects about 500 exhibitors covering the whole industrial chain as well as over 10,000 professional visitors, said the organizers.

The expo will create a display and communication platform for the advanced air mobility industry, consisting of six sections, namely infrastructure, manufacturing and supportive facilities, electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and transportation, administration and solution services, commercial application and integration, as well as entertainment and consumption products. In addition to exhibitions, the expo will also feature forums, matchmaking, demonstration and interactive experience events and more, according to the organizers.

China has been promoting the development of the low-altitude economy and advanced air mobility in recent years. The low-altitude economy was mentioned for the first time in this year's Government Work Report, which described it as a "new growth engine".

According to data from the China Center for Information Industry Development, a public institution of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the market scale of China's low-altitude economy grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to 506 billion yuan ($70.86 billion) in 2023 and is expected to hit 1.06 trillion yuan by 2026.

Shanghai has been striving to bolster the growth of advanced air mobility as well. Earlier in July, the Shanghai government released an action plan on the high-quality development of the low-altitude economy, highlighting the construction of a complete industrial system with a core industrial scale of over 50 billion yuan by 2027.

Also, the city is aiming to work with cities across the Yangtze River Delta region to build the nation's first batch of cities with low-altitude aviation availability. On Sunday, an interprovincial low-altitude passenger transport route connecting Shanghai Pudong International Airport with the Kunshan City Terminal in neighboring Jiangsu province commenced commercial operations, greatly reducing the transportation time between the two cities.

"Shanghai, as the leader in civil aviation, has a good base for developing the low-altitude economy. The city boasts incomparable and comprehensive advantages in areas such as supportive technologies, talents, business clusters, application scenarios and more," said Gu Chunting, vice-chairman of the Shanghai Council for the Promotion of International Trade. "The expo will mainly focus on the typical applications of the advanced air mobility, including transportation, emergency response, cultural tourism, city management and entertainment, which are expected to speed up the landing of the low-altitude economy in diverse fields."