Preparations for this year’s edition of the SMEs International Expo
are at an advanced stance with exhibitors continuing to sign up. This
was disclosed by the SME International Expo Chief Executive
Officer, Delight Makotose in an interview with the Business Events
this week.
Makotose indicated that his company had covered considerable
ground in preparing for this year’s show, which is set to be held from
23 to 26 October at the Harare International Conference under the
theme, “Turnaround, Restructure and Transformation for SMEs in the
digital era.”
“We have covered a lot of ground. We’ve already started canvassing
for people to come and exhibit. There is a huge uptake and a lot of
organisations have noted that the SMEs International Expo is a key
platform for them to exhibit and showcase their products and services.
So far we are sitting more than 60 per cent (of taken up exhibiting
space). SMEs International Expo is ready to present Zimbabwe to the
world and we’re really up to speed in what we are doing,” said
Makotose.
Asked what visitors should expect at this year’s show, Makotose
highlighted a number of initiatives which are meant to enhance visitor
and exhibitor experience.
“Right now we are expanding the scope of the exhibition. We used to
have a day’s business conference but now it has become a two day
business conference running concurrently with the exhibition so that
people will be seeing what is being exhibited and at the same time
there will also be people discussing and deliberating issues pertaining
to business and how they are affecting the whole ecosystem and the
value chains.
“We are also going to have a number of international presenters from
as afield as Senegal on the conference who are going to share notes
with our entrepreneurs and at the same time we’ll have renowned
local people who will be presenting papers there,” Makotose said.
“We have engaged all banks to bring a handful of their people to
exhibit. We also have a number of their SMEs desks. What we are
doing is exposing them (bank customer exhibitors) at a bigger and
grander scale. That’s the other new aspect,” said Makotose.
The exhibition, which has hosted a number of exhibitors from the
region and the continent over the years, is expected to feature a
foreign component as usual.
“This year I think we are going to surpass the way we’ve performed
with international exhibitors. There is a huge uptake from the
international scene and we are still engaging. For your information we
have linkages with some chambers, for example, in South Africa we
have done such engagements as well as with the Zambians and
Malawians. We want people from across all the four oceans to come
to Harare, Zimbabwe,” the show boss indicated.
The SME International Expo was founded in 2011 with the aim of
assisting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and their suppliers
and other relevant stakeholders to foreground their brands to the
market.
