Hong Kong: Cosmoprof Asia targets 40,000 visitors this year

• Cosmoprof Asia 2007 & The Natural Health Fair 2007: 14-16 November 2007
• The 3-day beauty trade fair, Cosmoprof Asia, is being held in Hong Kong from 14 to 16th November 2007. The trade fair is expected to attract about 40,000 visitors and over 1,260 exhibitors from 35 countries and regions.
• The fair offers 3 different product sections: retail-distribution, packaging which is widely known as pack, as well as hair and beauty salon. Hong Kong, Singapore and South Africa are the first timers in the fair. Cosmoprof Asia has launched an international buyer programme for the first time.
• Highlighting cosmetics and toiletries products, the programme aims to bring qualified buyers from India, Japan and Thailand. The buyers are invited to introduce their company as well as market segment at a business meeting with over 100 pre-matched and qualified exhibitors. The meeting also offers informal discussion to explore business potential and establish new business relations.
• New Zealand is the focus of the trade fair this year. New Zealand trades and enterprises are going to showcase their natural products industry. Another spotlight of the fair is the in-depth seminar "Natural Trade, New Direction" which shows the overview of the hottest botanical from South Africa, the Arctic Ocean and the Amazon rain forest.
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Hong Kong: Rubbish plastics go fashion in New York and London

• Fashin Access October 2007: 3-5 October 2007
• One may hardly believe that plastic picked in India's rubbish dump can be turned into fashionable bags shown in boutique in London and New York.
• Conserve, an Indian NGO, brings this into reality and plans to shift the move to China. "Some of them even don't know how to use scissors before," said Anita Ahuja, founder and designer of Conserve, who was referring the rag pickers that make their living through hunting debris in rubbish dump.
• Organized by Anita and her husband, Conserve aims to help the poor through offering jobs. The project was started in 1998. Anita has never dreamed that this small-scale project can actually turn out to be a profitable exporting business. Every day, the plastic are picked from the dump. Then they are moulded into single sheets of plastics which are sewed into a wide range of colourful wearable products such as handbags and flip-flops. These finished products are all shipped overseas to boutique in Spain, the United States, France and United Kingdom. All the colours on the tailor-made products are their original colours. Anita stressed that they never put any dye on them. They set colours into bollyhood stars names for better communication among workers.
• Conserve plans to expand their business to China. They have recently set up an office in Hong Kong. The spokesman of Hong Kong office told us they are now seeking a business partner for marketing in the mainland. "We want to promote recycling message and to help the poor at the same time, but we want somebody who knows the market well," said the spokesman. [ More... ]