China's luxury trade fair opens with dancing robots

Beijing: China's annual luxury goods trade show opened in Beijing on Friday with dancing robots, porcelain cream-and-marigold British high tea sets and classic handbuilt roadster automobiles.

Held at the Beijing Exhibition Centre and anticipated to draw a crowd of 50,000 people, the three-day fair features a range of globally-renowned luxury brands for technology, fashion and leisure, according to organisers from the Beijing Zhenwei Exhibition Company.

"Luxury China 2016 will also specially invite entrepreneurs of large enterprises, high-end consumer groups from specific cities to pay a special visit to the exhibitions, offering various enterprises the greatest opportunity of meeting supply and demand," said Beijing Zhenwei on the event-listing site China Exhibition.

With a middle class that has surged to some 109 million people last year, adding 43.4 million new urban middle class arrivals since 2000, according to financial services company Credit Suisse, the appetite for luxury goods has surged, EFE news reported.

Globally, Chinese buyers now account for some 20 percent of the total consumers of the luxury goods market, says global management firm McKinsey and Company.

The interest in robotics has also gained momentum in 2016 with the unveiling of security robot AnBot earlier this week, last month's creation of the lifelike humanoid robot 'Jia Jia' and Friday's mini-bot synchronised dance show to the tune of Michael Jackson's 1982 Grammy-nominated song, "Beat it".

The trade show runs until Sunday.