Hanover Trade Fair begins with digital technology the focus
NAN-F-20
Fair
Hanover (Germany), April 24, 2017 (dpa/NAN) German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday officially opened the world’s largest trade fair, the Hanover Trade Fair, along with Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo from 2017 partner countries, a report said.
The Hanover Trade Fair began with digital technology, one of the main talking points which includes the use of mixed reality smart glasses to view how stairlifts might look in a home.
At the opening ceremony, Merkel made a strong appeal for open markets.
“In the long run, isolationism and protectionism always lead to financial losses,’’ she warned.
The president of the Federation of German Industries Dieter Kempf criticised isolationism saying “ the German economy was prospering because of its commitment to global trade.
“German industry is in a dazzling state,” he said.
He said that German industry expected the creation of around 500,000 additional jobs this year, thanks to economic growth of 1.5 per cent.
Kempf’s view was echoed by the Director of the Association of German Engineers (VDI), who said that digitisation was having a positive impact on Germany as a production location rather than taking jobs away.
Ralph Appel told reporters at the fair that more than 500 jobs had been brought back to Germany in 2015.
This, he said, was because of the higher flexibility of workers and lower labour costs in general due to the increased automation of production.
The digital world is also having a positive effect in the home.
According to the report, German firm Thyssenkrupp is using the Hanover Trade Fair to exhibit a product using Microsoft’s HoloLens technology, a pair of mixed reality smart glasses.
It said that users wore the glasses to see if a stairlift would fit in their home and then use a tablet to check on other features.
Thyssenkrupp believes stairlifts can be installed four times faster, thanks to the product and expect interest to grow given the rising elderly population in Germany and beyond.
However, the trade fair also brought warnings of a need to increase infrastructure in an increasingly digital world.
“The German Federal Association for Energy and Water Management (BDEW) is worried about extra strain on the electricity network because of a lack of progress in extending the grid.
“We are too slow in expanding, out of a planned 1,800 km of new cabling, only 35 per cent has been realised, ,” BDEW Head Stefan Kapferer said.
The trade fair, which is in its 70th year, runs until Friday.
Around 200,000 visitors are expected to attend. (dpa/NAN)
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Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/Abdullahi Yusuf