A pecial containers?forum, chaired by Executive Manager of the Container Owners Association (COA), Michael Callus, will take place at Intermodal Asia 2014. The forum will include conference sessions about paint and coatings, tank containers and reefers.

Intermodal Asia will be held from 1-3 April at the Shanghai World Expo Center, with the special container forum taking place on day two in the Innovation Theatre.

The first conference session of the forum will look at paints and coatings for shipping containers, with panellists from Hempel, COSO Kansai Paint and Chemicals Co., Ltd, KCC Paints and Chugoku Marine Paints Ltd (CMP).

he topic of container paints is particularly relevant at the moment and this panel will provide interesting discussions?says Michael Callus of the COA. here has been a lot of innovation in recent years with the development of environmentally friendly paints, as container manufacturers and container owners are becoming more aware of the environmental effects of the paints used.?

Tank containers and the current issues facing the Asian tank container market will be addresseed during a conference session presented by Mike Duan of Exsif China and @tco (Asian Tank Container Organisation) and a reefer containers focussed conference session will be held by Edward Goh, of Carrier Transicold.

Another topic that will be addressed is smart containers, including the use of RFID technology.

he topic of smart containers is an important one as there are a lot of products on the market but there has not been legislation set about certain things, such as what data should be collected - and then there is the question of data protection,?says Michael.

Conference sessions will be held throughout the event in both Mandarin and English, alongside the exhibition which will feature hundreds of high profile exhibiting companies.

Intermodal Asia 2014 is organised by Informa Exhibitions in joint partnership with China leading container association, the CCIA (China Container Industry Association). The event will also benefit from the full support of the world largest container manufacturer, CIMC (China International Marine Containers (Group) Co., Ltd.), who is the chairman member company of the CCIA.