The 2020 edition of the building and construction industry show, the BuildExpo which was set to be held in Harare from 31 July to 2 August has been postponed to 2021 owing to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the measures taken to contain it.
“We had hoped to leverage the BuildExpo to create an exciting platform that would help companies to stimulate sales activity and recover for the remainder of 2020 at the end of July but, unfortunately, we have had to postpone the BuildExpo to the same time next year because of the current circumstances. We will be back next year and we will communicate the dates in due course,” Panashe Maisva, the managing director of the organisers of the event, Coast to Coast FDI & Domestic Investment Consultants Zimbabwe, told Business Events this week.
Maisva said that the mitigatory measures taken to contain the spread of the disease had negatively affected had slowed down business which would hamper their ability to participate in business events such as exhibitions.
“Revenues for most companies in the country have been negatively affected by the general business slow down due to the mitigation efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19. The building and construction industry has not been spared,” he said.
The BuildExpo debuted on the Zimbabwean market last year when it was held at the Borrowdale Race Course in Harare in October. The company was already running the exhibition in Botswana and Namibia. In his speech during the official opening of the maiden edition of the event, Maisva stated that the aims of the show included creating a platform for construction industry players to showcase their products and services and penetrate regional markets to expand their footprints in the region and earn foreign currency.