The most awaited Rwanda International Trade fair – commonly known as Expo, will take place, despite the continued battle against COVID-19.
On Thursday, the organizer, Rwanda Private Sector Federation(PSF) said that this Rwanda’s biggest annual exhibition in numbers and opportunities was scheduled to take place between 21st July to 10th August 2020 at Gikondo Expo Grounds, has been postponed to December 11th-31st 2020.
PSF then said; “The trade fair has been postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic that has disrupted different sectors including the movement of our international exhibitors.”
The trade fair attracts several exhibitors from Asia, Europe, and America, on top of regional and African countries. They join their Rwandan counterparts who constitute the majority exhibitors and visitors.
In total four hundred sixty-two (462) registered exhibitors attended 2019 Rwanda International trade fair compared to four hundred fifty-one (451) registered exhibitors in the previous year of 2018.
Rwandan registered exhibitors were 340 compared to 315 in 2018. Among foreign exhibitors, Egypt registered 44 exhibitors, Kenya 19, Pakistan 14 and India 10. Overall, the East African region had the largest number of exhibitors.
For PSF, this fact “shows a positive trend in EAC’s intra-regional trade within the member states.”
PSF further said that the Summation of all survey respondents shows that in total, 23 countries were registered and represented by their countries to the Rwanda International Trade Fair of 2019. In Africa, 13 countries participated, Asia registered 9 countries, whereas only 1 country from Europe participated.
Rwanda International Trade fair 2019 was scheduled for 21 days and managed to attract 329,178, while 2018 trade fair attracted 369,384 visitors and 271, 613 in 2017.
For 2020, said PSF official, expections are high. We hope all countries would have opened up and people will be moving freely to do business. Exhibitors might reach more than 500 since many people will want to recover for the Covid19 pandemic.
Expo 2019 – Origin of participants
RWANDA KENYA TANZANIA EGYPT GHANA NIGERIA TOGO CONGO BRAZZAVILLE MOROCCO CAMEROUN PAKISTAN IRAN PALESTINE INDIA MALAYSIA SINGAPORE IVORY COAST MADAGASCAR BENIN CHINA INDONESIA TURKEY SYRIA
