(Sep. 10, 2020, Beijing) The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers(CAAM) announced today that 2020 China Auto Supply Chain Conference(former China Auto Parts Annual Conference cum Summit Forum, hereinafter referred to as "Supply Chain Conference"), jointly organized by CAAM and Xi'an Municipal People’s Government, will be held in Xi'an, Shaanxi province from Oct 21 to 22, 2020. The theme of the event is "Fostering New Opportunities, Seeking New Chapter, Making New Advances—Helping Build A Safe and Controllable Auto Industrial Chain". The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the China Machinery Industry Federation will give strong support to the opening of this conference.

Keeping pace of the times, the Auto Parts Annual Conference upgraded to Supply Chain Conference

Under the big trend of industrial chain and supply chain in change, starting from 2020, the 17-year-old "China Auto Parts Annual Conference cum Summit Forum" will be upgraded to "China Auto Supply Chain Conference". Luo Junmin, Deputy Secretary-general of CAAM, said at the press conference: "After changing its name, the Supply Chain Conference will inherit its new mission, and play a bigger role in promoting communication across the sector for the sustainable development of Chinese auto industry".

The supply chain of the automobile industry has grown into a dynamic associated body, led by OEM, whole machine and assembly manufacturers, and supported by upstream and downstream enterprises, related service providers and competent authorities. These entities will jointly complete various tasks covering the full life cycle from purchase, production, salesto service of automotive products. Supply chain security is the foundationfor a safe auto industry. Without reliable supply chain, it would not be possible to build a strong auto industry. In response to new development challenges in post-pandemic period, we need to adopt proactive measures to ensure that the auto industrial chain and supply chain are sustainable, safe and reliable. Against the backdrop of global industrial transformation, Chinese auto industry should seize the opportunities to build a safe and controllable supply chain, achieve high quality development, as part of the effort to turning China into an auto power.

For this conference, upgraded from "Auto Parts Annual Conference" to "Supply Chain Conference", is a microcosm of the development of global auto supply chain. For example, one of the obvious changes is that “Software Defined Vehicles(SDV)” will be mentioned frequently. Software will be widely used in definition, development, validation, sales, maintenance of vehicles, and will thus optimize experience and process and continuously create values in each of these processes. Indeed, in a mobility era, the car is gradually transitioning from a hardware-driven machine to a software-driven electronics device, the SDV trend is becoming ever more apparent. Under such a trend, traditional automotive value chainis about to be overhauled, major auto enterprises have elevatedthis topic to a strategic level, indicating that SDV trend is inevitable.

In fact, with the complete overhaul of global auto industry driven by a new round of technological revolution, the boundaries of the auto industry is being expanded, and many external forces have penetrated this sector, thus all-round service providers appeared, for example new hardware, new software and vehicle operation, communication and content providers. In this sense, hardware-led traditional parts concept is no longer applicable, software-led new supply chain is coming into being, the auto supply chain landscape will be totally reshaped.

In this context, it seems natural to rename the "China Auto Parts Annual Conference cum Summit Forum"to keep up with the times, reflecting the theme of the conference and today's development trends.