India's Pioneer Media on TradeFairs

Messe Frankfurt taps SL for global trade fair participation

Exposure will give Sri Lankans a competitive edge

(Messe Frankfurt officials at the event)

Messe Frankfurt is focusing on the Sri Lankan market as the company is a global player in the trade fair sector.

The country is well poised for growth and it could gain much advantage by participating in international trade fairs. The exposure will give them a competitive edge in progressing in their respective sectors, Senior Vice President and Board Member Messe Frankfurt Stephan Kurzawski said.

“We conduct 146 trade fairs and exhibitions worldwide with 30 global subsidiaries and 66 international sales partners representing 188 countries. The company earns revenue around 669 million Euros. We are in contact with approximately 95,000 exhibitors and 4.4 million visitors worldwide. There are 48 events in Germany and more numbers outside the country,” he said.

“We are far away from every competitor. However, it is a challenge to be in a digital environment. We overcome this issue by loading more content to the trade shows.”

“Information is most essential in today’s context and innovation is the key to stay ahead of competition. In the trade fair business inspiration, emotions and information are vital. As we are a sustainable company we organise a new show every year,” Kurzawski said.

“Organising trade shows is not a simple game. Among the partner countries of Ambiente event are Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, UK and India. The country’s business community should visit at least one exhibition.

“The quality of Sri Lankan products is very high. The modern designs are outstanding. With the right product, quality and exhibition the companies can secure orders.

“We have partnered with the Export Development Board to create awareness among the SMEs of the importance of participating in the trade fairs to build market linkages.

We will also have a project to establish close links with the SME sector by 2020 to expand their export market share,” he said.

Commenting on Messe Frankfurt organised global exhibitions, he said that four Sri Lankan apparel manufacturers participated at the 2017 ‘Ambiente’ event in Paris along with four fashion designers. He expressed the hope that there will be more participants this year.

“We are happy with Sri Lankan participants at the last year’s event and they are also expecting to attract more for the 2018 event which would be held in Paris in September and for their other events as well,” Messe Frankfurt CEO of Sri Lanka, Omer Salahuddin said.

“With long years of experience in organising trade fairs, today Messe Frankfurt is one of the global leaders in the fair organising industry while generating sales of 661 million euros and more than 271 million euros sales were generated outside Germany,” he said.

We are planning to set up a regional office in Colombo by the end of this year and expand our services as we consider Sri Lanka to be an important market.

As one of our Board Members visited the country it will be followed up with a trend seminar in Colombo.

There will also be a designer and student delegation to create awareness regarding the opportunities, he said.