Asia will represent 53% of the worldwide composites market in the next five years – delegates heard at the seventh session of JEC Asia Composites Show & Conferences that closed last week, with promising outcomes for the Asian composites market.

Business and knowledge

Delegates, who attended the five conferences on Asian markets’ trends, production solutions, oil and gas, aeronautics and carbon, were able to discuss the new trends with more than 30 speakers from Asia-Pacific and Europe.

Moreover, 11 national pavilions, which included France, China, Thailand, United Kingdom, Spain, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, Germany, Japan, and the USA, represented their composites advances to the international crowd of more than 50 countries.

“The support of our long-time partners from all around the world, especially in Asia, has helped us bring the event to what it is today: an international platform with composites professionals willing to develop the Industry together,” commented Mutel.

In addition to the meetings on site, more than 250 pre-arranged business meetings were organised by JEC teams between exhibitors and end-users buyers such as Airbus Defense, Boeing, BASF, Delta Aircraft, Louis Vuitton, Mitsubishi Chemicals, and more.

Composites in automotive

Alain Prost, four times Formula 1 World Champion, held a debate on high-tech composites in automotive. “Alain Prost shared his experience in the race car industry and the difficulties he had to overcome to succeed in a competitive environment. His highlight of the importance of being surrounded by a good team and their common faith to success is truly inspiring,” said Frederique Mutel, JEC Group President and CEO.

“I can relate to his state of mind as the composites industry evolves in a fierce market. JEC mission is to create the best environment and give the needed knowledge to every exhibitors and visitors of JEC Asia to build successful partnerships and gather the most information possible from our conferences.”

Country of honour

This year, Singapore has been chosen as the country of honour, with key composites innovations. Out of the 11 Innovation Awards trophies, no less than four awards were handed out to Singaporean laureates in the Compression Moulding, Life Achievement, Academic and Student categories.

The Singaporean Universities’ projects have also been showcased in the Live Demo Zone and the Innovation Corner with pioneering composites parts. These included a race car from the National University of Singapore’s Formula Society of Automotive Engineering (NUS FSAE), a SunSPEC 3 solar car from Singapore Polytechnic, and an electric EVA Car, a taxi for tropical megacities, with a monocoque structure made entirely of carbon fibre reinforced polymer, developed by TUM Create (joint research programme between Technische Universität München (TUM) in Germany and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore).

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