The plenary sessions that open PM Asia 2007 in Shanghai on Monday, 2 April, will give delegates a comprehensive picture of the PM industry in China and set the tone of the three-day event. The sessions range across structural parts, ferrous and copper powder and the diamond tooling industry. China’s cemented carbide and magnet industries – already substantial in terms of global resource and production will also be dealt with and the day is rounded off with a review of progress being made in PM research and development in China.

Ni Guancao director of the Shanghai Powder Metallurgy Works, and Director General of the PM Association of China Machinery Parts Society will not only tell delegates about structural parts and their production, but also set industrial production in the context of China’s 11th Five Year Plan 2006 – 2010.

Professor Jianmin Cui, head of Laiwu Iron and Steel Group Powder Metallurgy Co Ltd, and president of the PM Association of Steel Construction, China, will also take a broad brush approach to encompass his analysis of ferrous and copper powder production.

The growing global appetite for magnets and China’s role in providing for that demand will be addressed by Professor Luo Yang, a voting member representing China on the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, in his presentation on the industry’s current status and future prospects.

The world has long recognised that China holds a large proportion of the world’s raw tungsten; only more latterly has the realisation dawned that China also has a cemented carbide manufacturing industry capable of competing very successfully in global markets.

Delegates will learn more of that from the presentation by Li Zheng from the Zhuzhou Cemented Carbide Group, a giant among the Chinese companies that make up the industry, when he looks towards the future development of the industry.
Hard materials and future development will also form the core of the talk on diamond tooling by Professor Xiyu Luo from the Central Iron & Steel Research Institute in Beijing.

For academics and industrialists in the audience alike, research and development represent one of the keys to the industry’s health and future development in China.
Distinguished PM academics are also a feature of the International business community’s contribution to the conference, with keynotes by leading lights such as Professor Randall German of Mississippi State University and Professor Cetin Morris Sonsino, of Fraunhofer in Germany.

PM Asia 2007 is organised by Elsevier, publishers of Metal Powder Report. Editor Richard Felton said: “After the success of PM Asia 2005 we have once again put together a strong programme that fully supports our aim – advancing PM technology in Asia. The local PM associations have welcomed us and been fully supportive of the objectives. One result of that is the line-up of senior Chinese representatives from business and academe who have agreed to address the conference. The strength of those presentations will be matched by those from the international community. In all we’re looking forward to a stimulating three days.” For the full programme go to www.pmasia2007.com

With no World Congress this year, the first half of 2007 offers a busy schedule for conference goers in the PM community with events in Belarus and the United States (two) before the end of May! With the PIM conference in Florida in February, the action switches to Belarus in March, and back to the US for SAE in Detroit in April, just after Easter. A pause for breath, then, before PowderMet2007 in Denver. But even that is early – in May this year instead of the usual June.

After such frantic activity, there are those who may need a longish summer break. But once recovered Francophiles will be making bookings for the European Powder Metallurgy Association’s EuroPM2007 which this year will be staged in Toulouse in mid October.

It would be difficult to refuse an invitation to such an elegant city.