SHANGHAI - The city witnessed the opening of Chinaplus 2012, the world's No.2 plastics and rubber exhibition, at its new international expo center on Wednesday.

"Despite of the strong impact of economic instability in Europe and America over the China export industry, the event is still considered playing a leading role in pushing forward exports," said Stanley Chu, chairman of Adsale Exhibition Services Ltd.

Chu said the show will present the world's manufacturers an integrated plastics and rubber application arena with innovation and technological advancement.

"It will also provide an excellent platform for the actualization of concepts relating to environment protection, energy saving, as well as carbon emission reduction, by showing how plastics and rubber can turn such concepts to reality," he said.

The four-day exhibition is expected to have 100,000 Chinese and foreign professional buyers to observe and source chemical raw materials and various types of plastics and rubber technology.

The show, he said, made a great improvement, evident by the double-digit growth in terms of both scale and the number of exhibitors. Compared with the show held in Guangzhou last year, the current event has increased in size from 180,000 square meters to 210,000 square meters, representing an increase by 17 per cent.

Also, the show scale has grown by over 40 per cent when compared to 2010's Shanghai show, he added.

More than 2,700 exhibitors from 35 countries and regions display over 2,500 units of machinery, latest chemicals and raw materials.

In addition, Chu said, the show has secured the support from 13 country and region pavilions, including Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, Turkey, Britain, the United States and two new pavilions from Thailand and South Korea.

"The keen international participation has underlined the industry's optimistic view on the Chinese market, as well as the strong international status of Chinaplas," he said.