CeMAT Singapore – 2025’s Leading Destination
CeMAT Australia is one of the first dates circled on the calendar by manufacturers in the intralogistics, robotics and automation, warehousing, supply chain management and materials handling sectors. Their sister event, CeMAT Southeast Asia, has also become a fast favourite with businesses that deal extensively with our near neighbours to the north, with 2024’s edition the most popular yet among those that travelled to Singapore. The good news is that the event is returning for 2025 in the same location, going for a second year straight in Singapore after previously using Mumbai and Jakarta as locations. The event will be held at Singapore EXPO from 19-21 May 2025, with registration for exhibitor stands now open.
According to Mike Nissen, Commercial Director at organisers Hannover Fairs Australia, Singapore is the obvious place for such an important manufacturing meet-up to be held. “Singapore is the hub of logistics in Southeast Asia,” he explained to Industry Update. “It’s the benchmark in automation in intralogistics and supply chain for that region, and while you do have emerging markets like Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam they generally look to Singapore. You’ll find a lot of the APAC headquarters for the large integrators and supply chain suppliers in Singapore.” Singapore is one of Australia’s major trading partners, a nation known for its ease of doing business and, crucially, a favourite with our steel fabrication Australia sector going back decades. “Australia generally has very good trade relations with a lot of those Southeast Asian countries,” said Nissen.
For Singapore, in particular, Australia has a long history of free trade agreements. CeMAT Singapore was very well received in 2024 at our first show there. “We had about 7000 visitors, but it was the quality of visitor that attended the event that stood out – we had a lot of what we call our tier one exhibitors. They were suitably impressed; they supported the event and so it’s here to stay.” CeMAT Singapore presents a chance for Australian manufacturers to interact with the huge Chinese sector that is increasingly making things in Southeast Asia and to learn about the huge advances in AI adoption in supply chain management that are taking place in the region. “You’ve got this burgeoning trend where China is looking to manufacture outside of their borders, and Southeast Asia is one of their key markets,” said Nissen.
“The whole supply chain and logistics side is also upskilling to go with that, with automation coming in. Where once that would have been factory or warehouse workers, now it is automation and robotics. The critical point, particularly with Southeast Asia and especially Singapore, is space. Whether it be manufacturing, warehousing or mining plant and equipment Australia, space is a considerable issue. Australia, for example, is rather urbanized, but Southeast Asian countries and cities are incredibly densely populated and require maximum space utilisation. That’s where I think the automation side in this tighter space is really coming into fruition. It’s an opportunity to use space to the maximum. There’s AI-backed technology that will get into every centimetre of a facility space and make sure that efficiency is 100%. Another aspect is the cold chain. Being Equatorial countries, there are goods like in pharmaceuticals and Food & Beverage that need temperature-controlled environments.” said Nissen.
