The 2021 Shanghai International Auto Show, the world's first A-class auto show held this year, ushered in its first media day on April 19.

The staging of the auto show is not a standalone case. It is an epitome of what's happening around the globe. Today, in Shanghai, ports and airports are transporting products and raw materials around the clock, providing strong support for the fragile international trade ecosystem.

Compared with trade of goods, public platforms for new product launches, technology exchange and concept collision are even scarcer today. Shanghai happens to make up for the world's shortage.

The middle of April has seen the arrival of three major exhibitions, which are the Shanghai International Trade Fair held at the Expo exhibition hall, the Watches and Wonders Shanghai exhibition staged at the West Bank Art Center, and the ongoing Shanghai Auto show at the National Exhibition and Convention Center. The exhibitions have enlivened the atmosphere on both sides of the Huangpu River.

“It feels like a traveler finding an oasis after a journey in a desert,” said Carson Chan, the chief advisor of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH) at the West Bund Art Center located at the Xuhui waterfront area.He  flew to Shanghai last month from Hong Kong and finally made it to this exhibition after a 14-day quarantine.

The Watches and Wonders Geneva exhibition, normally held in April each year, has been transformed into a virtual trade fair this year, while Baselworld 2021 has officially been canceled due to the global coronavirus pandemic. The W&W Shanghai edition, however, has made up for the absence of a “physical fair”. It debuted last year with unexpected success, and is back this year with 19 exhibiting brands, including top brands like Rolex, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Montblanc and Chopin.

Compared with the relatively small market of high-end clocks and watches, large-scale international exhibitions for cars are geared towards hundreds of thousands of consumers and are thus particularly important. Especially at a moment of profound change in the automotive industry, with electric cars and autonomous driving coming online, every car-maker wants to show their innovative products and technologies to the world.

The headquarters and overseas factories of some multinational auto companies haven’t resumed their work or production yet as of the Shanghai auto show opening, but they showed a strong desire to launch new cars, show concept cars and exchange cutting-edge technologies. "No matter how hard it is now, it will be gone. But if you miss the future, you really miss a lot," a person in charge of the China headquarters of a multinational auto company said.

"At present, Shanghai plays an important role in promoting the "return" of globally important offline exhibition activities." Exhibition industry experts believe that exhibitions such as auto shows and world mobile conferences that are usually held in many cities around the world in turn, especially need Shanghai to "make a good start" during the pandemic to help the global exhibition industry recover.

Under the pressure of the pandemic, global exhibition activities accelerate the digital transformation. When some exhibitions open in Shanghai, they can also be shared with the world in a digital way. The hundreds of new offerings that were unveiled online at Watches and Wonders Geneva 2021, for example, made their debut offline in Shanghai a few days later. Although the two places are thousands of miles apart, they can jointly empower the global watch industry through the combination of physical and virtual exhibition. "I think this is a pioneering attempt of international cooperation," Carson Chan said.