Today, I walked the floor at MEDICA 2014. Or maybe I should say I walked and walked and walked. There are 17 halls connected by a series of walkways both inside and outside. The exhibit grounds are huge and you can find just about anything being used in health care.

There is a respectable U.S. contingent. In fact, the show the show has a U.S. pavilion, a department of commerce pavilion and several state pavilions.

Still, it surprised me that more U.S. firms are not exhibiting. According to Messe Dü[<00FC>][<00FC>]sseldorf's 2013 to 2014 comparison there are 396 U.S. exhibitors at the show. This is down from 397 in 2013, so a loss of just one exhibitor. However the 396 US exhibitors in 2014 booked 6300 square meters of space (nearly 68,000 square feet) which is a 5 percent increase over last year, so the US firms that returned came back stronger.

In addition to the U.S. there were more than 600 Chinese exhibitors in only slightly more space. Many small Chinese firms are introducing their products.

Italy meanwhile, was represented by 322 firms, France by 235 exhibitors, 104 from the Netherlands, 186 from South Korea, 178 from Taiwan and 296 from the UK.

I guess it is not a surprise that there are over 1000 firms from Germany so Germany accounts for more than the U.S. and China combined. In fact, Germany accounts for just under 20 percent of the 4825 exhibitors.

While I do not know how many buyers attended the show this year and those numbers won't be available know until the show has ended, we do know that last year there were 132,000 attendees. I believe if you are a U.S. firm and you want to expand your business outside of the U.S., you have to take a look at MEDICA.

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