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Bianca Mlilo, Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) Company has launched its campaign for the 2017 exhibition scheduled to run from April 25-29.
Addressing journalists at a media briefing yesterday, acting board chair Ms Ruth Ncube said the campaign was already rolling.
She said the company was awaiting confirmation of bookings from countries such as Brazil, Japan, Mauritius and Russia.
“The 2017 event runs under the theme ‘Harnessing Linkages for Industrial Development.’ This theme continues the industrialisation focus of last year and goes a step further by encouraging participants to collaborate, both locally and globally as we move towards sustained industrial development,” she said.
“This call is particularly pertinent as it comes at a time when the revival of the industry is still at the top of economic development agenda for Sadc and the African Union as the continent transitions to own beneficiation and processing to extract full benefits from exporting processed and manufactured goods.”
Ms Ncube said preparations for the 2017 multi-sectoral trade exhibition began in May after this year’s fair but had intensified after the theme had been revealed.
Marketing and advertising of ZITF 2017, she said, was ongoing with an aggressive exhibitor and visitor recruitment drive and was targeting local and international participants.
“In terms of encouraging international participation, a high level team has already participated in trade and business delegations to target destinations in Europe and Southern Africa,” she said.
Ms Ncube added that the team had also spent a week in the capital paying courtesy calls to foreign envoys stationed there to encourage them to strengthen trade ties between Zimbabwe and their representative countries by participating in the 2017 expo.
ZITF Company general manager Mrs Nomathemba Ndlovu said that the company did not envisage any problems when it came to exhibitions, which made use of products whose entry into the country were restricted by Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016.
She said they were working with Government to make the country’s premier showcase a success and ZITF would ensure that it complied with all regulations.
ZITF is one of the largest trade fairs south of the Sahara. It is a multi-sectoral, multi-national annual exhibition, which offers exposure to trade and public visitors. —@BiancaMlilo.
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