The event ends, but the momentum continues: New Zealand International Building Expo & Summit 2021 concludes successfully

The annual industry showcase, the New Zealand International Building Expo & Summit (NZIBES) 2021, concluded successfully on 7 August at Vodafone Events Centre. This year’s event was organised by the New Zealand Chinese Building Industry Association (NZCBIA), with 3A Events and MultiMarketing as joint supporting organisers.

YIJU New Zealand invited Frank Xu (Xu Li), president of event organiser NZCBIA, to share his review of and reflections on NZIBES 2021 with readers:

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YIJU New Zealand’s editors asked me to provide an official review of this year’s NZIBES. As someone who has led this event from its beginnings through its growth, I would also like to take this opportunity to reflect on the experience, lessons, impressions and achievements of all our events from 2016 to 2021. I hope this will encourage communication with more industry colleagues and help us agree on shared goals, unite and participate in this major undertaking. Together, with a professional and responsible approach, we can continue strengthening New Zealand’s Chinese property and construction industry.

Event background: NZCBIA’s vision and 6 years of tireless effort

NZCBIA was established in 2015 with a vision to raise overall standards in New Zealand’s construction industry by promoting professional working practices and a conscientious, responsible approach.

We also translated this vision into four core tasks. Representation: providing strong industry representation, representing New Zealand’s construction industry in China and the Chinese construction industry in New Zealand. Professional leadership: building a professional platform with clear standards to lead industry collaboration and professional development. Stronger communication: promoting recognition of the Chinese property and construction industry’s contribution to society, and strengthening communication with all levels of government and local industry colleagues. Information sharing: providing a platform for sharing information to support the rapid, healthy development of the Chinese property and construction industry.

The vision is inspiring, but the road to achieving it is difficult. From the outset, the NZCBIA board planned professional events to serve the Chinese property and construction industry, a professional magazine to give us our own voice, and, eventually, awards recognising outstanding projects by Chinese industry professionals. To this end, we have persevered in organising this annual celebration. In 2016, we successfully held the NZCBIA annual professional conference and a small exhibition. In 2017 and 2018, we held expos and summit forums. In 2019, we added the first Excellence Awards ceremony to the Expo and Summit. Advancing each year, we have largely established our own style and identity: international in outlook, focused on the Chinese property and construction industry, and highlighting Chinese people’s contribution to local society. Each year’s event has received extensive coverage from news media in China and New Zealand, including China’s CCTV and Southeast Net, the New Zealand Herald, TV One and Stuff, as well as numerous local Chinese news outlets.

NZIBES 2021 made a strong comeback after its absence in 2020 because of the pandemic. The organising committee continued strengthening the brands of the Expo, Gala Dinner and Excellence Awards ceremony, once again making it one of New Zealand’s largest property and construction events and an unmissable annual gathering for industry professionals.

Over the past 6 years, NZIBES has carried the aspirations of the Chinese property and construction industry, successfully achieving one goal after another: serving the industry and community, demonstrating professional leadership, strengthening communication, speaking up for the Chinese property and construction industry, promoting professional working practices, providing professional training, and awarding scholarships to support young industry professionals. Each year’s NZIBES can be seen as a review of the achievements of New Zealand’s Chinese property and construction industry.

 

Market background: rapid growth in the Chinese construction industry, and the risks and opportunities of the pandemic era

The success of the NZIBES Expo, Gala Dinner and Excellence Awards is the visible outcome. Beneath it lie NZCBIA’s unifying leadership and foresight, and the rapid growth of the Chinese property and construction industry.

When the pandemic broke out last year, NZCBIA proposed a strategy for confronting it and navigating the post-pandemic era: persevere, regroup and transform. Through these three stages, we hoped our members and industry colleagues could turn risks into opportunities and emerge renewed.

It has been pleasing to see our Chinese property and construction colleagues seize opportunities swiftly while the wider market was still hesitant, increasing their share of Auckland’s residential market from one-third to more than half. However, I must remind everyone that the industry’s current strengths do not yet amount to a fundamental transformation. We have made substantial progress in quantity, but achieving a qualitative change will require more effort. We need to improve our overall performance across every stage, from development and design to construction and management, to consolidate our market position.

In my speech at the Gala Dinner, I said that the Chinese property and construction industry is now the ‘mainstream’ in Auckland’s market. This is an honour that also brings greater responsibility. We must create more outstanding projects, construct more high-quality buildings, strengthen our sense of responsibility and working practices in health and safety, take greater responsibility for the environment and carbon neutrality, and contribute more to local communities with a stronger sense of social responsibility. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage us all once again.

 

Event review: highlights abound at NZIBE 2021

Laozi wrote in the Tao Te Ching: ‘The highest goodness is like water. Water benefits all things without competing.’ Like water, NZIBES serves the property and construction industry, allowing it to benefit without competing with anyone for those benefits. This is why NZIBES receives such broad industry support every year. Drawing on the property and construction market’s prosperity over the past two years and the foundations laid by previous events, NZIBES 2021 reached a new level in both scale and calibre. In reviewing NZIBES 2021, I believe the figures speak most clearly.

45+12

This year’s event received sponsorship from 45 companies and brands, and strong support from 12 government and community organisations. NZIBES 2021 had 5 Diamond Sponsors, including PlaceMakers, which supported our event at the highest sponsorship level for the sixth consecutive year. There were also 2 International Sponsors and 10 Excellence Awards Sponsors.

It is particularly worth highlighting that sponsors of NZIBES 2021 spanned the entire property and construction supply chain, including development, design consultancy, construction, materials supply, real estate agencies, bank lending and legal services. Supporting organisations included Auckland Council, the council’s trade and development agency, New Zealand’s largest chamber of commerce, and leading Chinese business associations headed by the China Chamber of Commerce in New Zealand. This clearly demonstrated NZIBES’ influence within New Zealand society and the industry.

10,000+

This year’s Expo theme, ‘Building Together | Living Together – Shaping Future Living Together’, was highly forward-looking, reflecting the market’s prevailing direction towards environmental protection and carbon neutrality. Held over Friday and Saturday, it fully considered the characteristics of New Zealand’s Chinese property and construction industry, offering B2B services while also meeting B2C needs. Exhibitors likewise covered the entire property and construction supply chain. The Expo attracted more than ten thousand visitors, rightfully establishing itself as one of New Zealand’s largest industry exhibitions. It fully showcased the healthy development, vitality and prosperity of New Zealand’s Chinese property and construction industry, its ability to move with the times, and its future direction.

82

Led by PlaceMakers, New Zealand’s largest building materials supplier, the Expo featured 82 exhibitors. Building on the PlaceMakers themed exhibition area from previous years, a new Innovation Zone showcased new technologies, materials and energy-efficient, environmentally friendly products.

Notably, more brands from China participated this year, including Midea, ROBAM, Hikvision, Dahua and Bravat. Together with two International Sponsors, compared with only one in previous years, this marked a major step forward in the event’s international development. Exhibitors were also more evenly represented across the supply chain. While materials suppliers remained the largest group, there were more developers, consultancy providers, contractors, real estate agencies and property-related IT companies, demonstrating wider recognition of the NZIBES brand.

790

This year’s Gala Dinner and Excellence Awards ceremony moved to the five-star Cordis hotel. It brought together 790 guests from the property and construction industry, demonstrating the Chinese industry’s popularity and strength. The dinner’s overall atmosphere, design and equipment were all outstanding, and hotel management described it as the most prestigious banquet event held there in recent years.

11 / 19 / 23

The second NZCBIA Excellence Awards were presented at the Gala Dinner. This year, 23 projects won across 11 award categories, a substantial increase from the inaugural event’s 5 categories, with a more appropriate distribution of awards. The judging panel expanded to 19 members, divided into 3 specialist panels to make the assessment more professional. The judges were leading experts from Auckland’s property and construction industry, including directors and senior technical executives of major New Zealand consultancy firms, heads of tertiary architecture schools, general managers of major construction and development companies, and heads of council quality inspection departments. Alongside their conscientious judging, they expressed admiration for their Chinese colleagues’ achievements and offered ideas and advice for the industry.

This year’s most distinctive feature was the greater scale, complexity and diversity of the winning projects. Alongside the familiar residential projects in which Chinese industry professionals excel, there were major public projects, hotels beyond five-star standard, and commercial projects. The Excellence Awards included Project Management, Collaboration, Commercial Construction Subcontracting and Innovation categories, which other industry awards do not offer. In selecting the categories, we carefully considered how to support the range of activities and development of the Chinese property and construction industry.

 

Looking ahead: NZIBES, building an outstanding brand that grows alongside the Chinese property and construction industry

Preparations for next year’s NZIBES are already under way. The dates have been confirmed as Friday 19 August 2022 to 20 August 2022. The venues remain unchanged: the Expo will again be held at Vodafone Events Centre, and the Gala Dinner and Excellence Awards ceremony at the Cordis hotel.

As Laozi describes the virtues of water in the Tao Te Ching: ‘In dwelling, choose good ground; in thought, be deep; in relationships, be kind; in speech, be trustworthy; in governing, bring good order; in work, be capable; in action, choose the right time.’ NZIBES will continue to uphold altruism and service, doing everything we can to help our industry grow stronger, enable your companies and brands to realise their rightful value, and make this wonderful place where we live and work even better.

I would like to make a special appeal to Chinese property and construction colleagues in New Zealand: NZIBES is a brand we all share, and we want to work with you to continue building it. We welcome your participation in every form, so that together we can witness the growth and achievements of the Chinese property and construction industry.