A top international exhibition on cloud technology has been swept out of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre as it will clash with the visit of a top Beijing official, The Standard has learned.

The first Cloud Expo Asia and Data Centre World Hong Kong was originally set to be held at HKCEC on May 18 and 19.

The event organizer, CloserStill Media, was told to move the venue to AsiaWorld-Expo due to the security operations taking place for the visit of the official for the Belt and Road Summit also taking place at the HKCEC on May 18.

National People's Congress Standing Committee chairman Zhang Dejiang will be a keynote speaker at the summit, the first time since 2012 that a senior official will visit the SAR.

The visit comes as calls for independence have seen Beijing and the Hong Kong government warning advocates they may be held criminally liable.

CloserStill Media said the "last-minute venue change" will not delay the opening of the largest cloud and data center event in north Asia.

Group event director Chris Brown said they are left with no alternative but to move.

"We have almost 200 speakers, many of them flying into Hong Kong for the event, several thousand delegates and over 100 sponsoring companies, and the prospect of not knowing whether we could open the show at all on May 18 due to the security arrangements for another conference, made it impossible to plan, and carry out."

But moving to AsiaWorld-Expo "would allow events to run without disruption to delegates and exhibitors," he added.

An exhibitor who declined to be identified said he was just on time to have his shipment from Switzerland detoured.

"I am horrified," he said, adding he had been preparing for the exhibition for a year.

"How can a Beijing person coming to Hong Kong make that kind of change?"

The summit is organized by the SAR government in association with the Trade Development Council. But a TDC spokesman said it had "no role in the change of venue."

A source in the exhibition industry said Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (Management) Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the NWS Holdings Ltd, is responsible for managing the venue.

"It has been fair when handling the venue arrangement. There might be some other reasons [for the relocation of the event]," the source said.