admin“This year’s business trading days were increased from two to three thereby reducing the number of public days.
“In future the ZITF is likely to be an all business trade fair scrapping the public days in line with global trends,” ZITF chairman Mr Bekithemba Nkomo said.
More than 600 exhibitors turned up for this year’s trade fair with Zimbabwe having 426 direct exhibitors and 82 indirect while there are 33 foreign direct exhibitors and 134 foreign indirect exhibitors.
Meanwhile, ZITF Company general manager Mr Daniel Chigaru said the exhibition centre has the capacity to take in and accommodate any number of exhibitors.
Responding to questions whether the ZITF has the capacity to accommodate the overwhelming number of exhibitorsbasing on the increase on the number of international exhibitors this year, Mr Chigaru said there was enough space to accommodate any exhibitor.
A number of exhibitors were turned away and Mr Chigaru said it was because they could not commit themselves and not because of space.
“Talking about space, we have enough space and capacity to take in any other exhibitors. Those who were turned away were not turned because of space but other logistical issues,” said Mr Chigaru.
He said the total space at the ZITF was more than 60 000 square metres yet only about 48 000 had been occupied this year.
“Our capacity is over 60 000 square metres and the space taken this year is 48 963 square metres.
“This compares well to 51 362 square metres occupied last year as at least 2 000 square metres were allocated to essential services we had to offer” said Mr Chigaru.
He said the exhibitor numbers were down by 19 percent from last year’s 834 because of the bigger delegations by some international exhibitors who occupied bigger stands.
“Foreign exhibitors were slightly higher this year, totalling 29 from 14 countries. Due to the demand for space, we had to limit stand size in some cases,” Mr Chigaru said. — New Ziana/Business Reporter.
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