All is set for the start of Ghana’s first international trade show on Agriculture, Food and beverages at the Accra International Conference Centre Tuesday.
Dubbed, “Agrofood West Africa”, slated for December 3-5, 2013, the fair will run concurrently with ‘plastprintpack West Africa’, also the first international trade show on plastics, printing and packaging technology.
Fair organisers, ’fairtrade’, said the event was in response to West Africa’s growing imports of food processing and packaging machinery, as well as equipment for the plastics and printing industry.
“This is also true for imports of agricultural machinery and equipment. The United Nations comtrade data prove the same for West African imports of finished food products. It is on this background and responding to the growth, demand and vitality of West Africa’s industry that we at fairtrade organise agrofood and plastprintpack West Africa,” the Chief Executive Officer of the German trade show organiser, fairtrade, Mr Martin März, told the Daily Graphic.
He said agrofood and plastprintpack West Africa 2013 would see the participation of 81 exhibitors from 21 countries to showcase the entire set of technologies and solutions for the agrofood and the plastprintpack industry, saying, “it is a sold-out event.”
The Ministries of Food and Agriculture, and Trade and Industry in Ghana and the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce in Ghana (AHK Ghana) are supporting the programme, with Austria and France also making an appearance.
The exhibitors would come from Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bulgaria, China, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the United States.
“So far, more than 450 professional trade visitors from all over West Africa and Europe have pre-registered for the event. Our target is to reach an audience of 800 professionals during the three days of the event,” Mr März said.