At the first major edition of the Hannover Messe after the coronavirus crisis in mid-April, around 4,000 exhibitors want to showcase their innovations for more climate-friendly production. Trade fair boss Jochen Köckler presented the program of the industrial show on Wednesday. The central theme is technologies that should lead to CO2-neutral production and a resource-saving circular economy in the medium term. Specifically, the focus is on energy management and the development of a hydrogen economy, as well as automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence and data-driven, networked manufacturing processes.

"We currently face four major challenges: Climate change, energy shortages, disrupted supply chains and skills shortages," said Köckler. "Solutions to these will be technical in nature. And the solutions come together at the Hannover Messe." Exhibitors from April 17 to 21 included Siemens, SAP and Festo. A number of SMEs and start-ups have also registered.

Climate protection, energy efficiency and automation are closely linked, explained Köckler - they form a cross-cutting theme of the trade fair. "It is our task to increasingly move towards CO2-free production. The industry is coming here to demonstrate this."

Hydrogen as an energy carrier and storage medium, as well as its production through green electricity electrolysis, is a focal point. "There are still a lot of questions: where will it be produced, how will it be transported, how will pricing work?" A good 500 exhibitors at the trade fair focused on this topic alone. Biotechnologies for replacing oil-based plastics are also being discussed. The accompanying conference program will focus, among other things, on ways to attract more young people to professions with a scientific and technical focus.

The partner country is Indonesia. The largest country in Southeast Asia with an annual economic output of almost 1.2 trillion US dollars and a population of 276 million people was already the partner country in 2021 - at that time, however, there was only a digital and smaller version of the trade fair after it had to be canceled in 2020 due to the coronavirus. Now Indonesian exhibitors also want to present themselves once again in full format.

Back to old form?

This year, the exhibition will once again take up the majority of the site. "Finally out of the video conference and into the exhibition hall - when people come together, we also need a suitable platform," said Köckler. With around 2,500 exhibitors in 2022, the Hannover Messe was significantly smaller than before the pandemic. Around 75,000 visitors attended and a further 15,000 took part digitally. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the show in the capital of Lower Saxony often had more than 200,000 visitors.

"2022 was a real restart year," Köckler told the German Press Agency. "We are noticing that direct exchange is booming, especially in times of other crises." According to preliminary figures, the loss of Deutsche Messe, which organizes the Hannover Messe, was less than 15 million euros after all organized events in Germany and abroad. The company had originally expected a loss of 52 million euros.