Welcoming Speech by Adonis Mak. President of ACT International Media Group/ Publishing Director -SMT China magazine

Ladies and gentlemen, and distinguished guests, Ms Josephine Lee, Vice President, East China, Reed Exhibition, Mr. David Bergman, Vice President, International Relations, IPC, and Mr. Abby Tsoi, President, SMTA China, China Chapter.

First of all, I would like to extend my warm welcome to you all. Thank you all for joining us tonight for the Second SMT China Vision Awards presentation ceremony.

I said the same last year, which still looks very true today that China, the world's biggest electronic manufacturing center, despite the competition from neighborhood countries, the appreciation of the RMB, the tightening of government regulations; the Country’s GDP is still growing at double digits, more and more international and domestic SMT equipment, materials and service providers are entering into the market. We have many top class suppliers here, today, in this room. They made tremendous contributions in pushing China’s electronic manufacturing industry, SMT China magazine, by Vision Awards, has the honor to endorse their fine achievements and to recognize their great contributions.

In North America, the SMT Vision Awards are 16 years old. The event is organized by our sister publication in the United States, SMT Magazine. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious award programs of its kind in the U.S.  Here in China, our editors have chosen a distinguished panel of independent judges, from Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing and other area in East China. They include highly recognized industry experts in the field of electronics manufacturing technology. Their assignment for our magazine was to choose the best products and services on the market today in the area of factory automation.

To make sure the evaluation results were independent, a group of readers of SMT China were surveyed to provide their opinions too. Our readers, by the way, include manufacturing engineers at some of China's biggest and most advanced manufacturing plants in computer and peripherals, communications, consumer products and automotive electronics industries.

The SMT China Vision Awards is the most prestigious award program for China, participated and supported by world-class suppliers serving the industry in China, judged by experts in China, and Awards Presentation in China. This is the real program for China.

The winners of the SMT China Vision Awards are here tonight because they all deserved to win. We applaud their contributions to the electronics manufacturing community in China.

We would also like to take this opportunity to ask you to give a big hand of applause to all of our judges here tonight. However, our judges are advised not to disclose their identity, so please do not ever try to find out whether the person standing next to you is a judge or not. He might be the judge this year, but maybe not next year.

As suggested by industry experts and our judges of last SMT China Vision Awards and companies which participated last year, we have increased the Vision Awards category from 22 to 28, the increases are in the area of Pick and Place machines, Inspection and Test, and Materials. The changes allow more relevant, and rational comparisons. On the other hand, we reduced the judging criteria from 12 to 10. So the assignments for our Judges could be a little bit less difficult.

Yes, it’s really, really difficult this year. We have over 50 entries this year, almost 2 times of last year. And yet in some categories the scores are very close to each others, some are as close as within 0.5 score. Therefore we decided to award dual winners, or even three winners in several categories. You will know who they are later tonight.

Same as last year, we will have the Chinese Achievement Awards category this evening. As we all know, the SMT industry in China has always relied heavily on imports. But in recent years, we have been pleased to see the emergence of many local companies who are also developing their own products to serve the industry here. That's why we have added the Chinese Achievement Awards. By this awards, we want to encourage and to endorse the efforts by China-based companies to devote resources to R&D and for our industry. There are two Chinese companies who will be receiving this award tonight. You will know later who they are.

Newly added this year is the SMT China Vision Awards - Excellence Awards category. This is established to recognize the products or services that attained the highest individual judging criteria. There are 15 winners in total for the 10 judging criteria; again we have same results in some categories.

The presentation will begin immediately. However, let me remind you, those will-be-winners, we will be presenting to you the trophy and a big poster on the stage. We have also prepared the Vision Award Winner badges for you to use at the show tomorrow. You can collect this from our PR contact, Ms Lisa You of The Lightpoint Group at the entrance of the Venue. If you need the Vision Award logo or the picture of your trophy, etc. please go to Lisa for registration.
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Again, welcome to this Vision Awards Presentation Ceremony. This is a serious program. Our goal is to recognize the achievements of our peers tonight in the area of advanced manufacture technology. It also is a time for food, fun, entertainment and friendship, and a time to gather together in one place and to exchange ideas.

To keep on schedule tonight, I am going to make a stop here and pass the microphone to our distinguished guests; our first guest to speak is Mr David Bergman VP of Standards, Technology and International Relations of IPC.

Please join me in welcoming David.