India International Trade Fair to start on Tuesday with half area, half participants

New Delhi, Nov 13 (IANS) With the theme "Start up Standup", the 37th India International Trade Fair (IITF) is all set to flag-off on Tuesday with around 22 countries and 3,000 domestic and foreign companies as participants.

The IITF 2017, organised by the India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), will be held from November 14-27 at Pragati Maidan. It will be inaugurated by the President of India Ram Nath Kovind.

An ITPO spokesperson told IANS that the fair will be held in half of the fairground Pragati Maidan complex due to the ongoing construction activity.

The IITF last year was held in an area of over 100,000 square meters with around 7,000 exhibitors.

"The fair is happening in half of the area, but 3,000 participants is also a big number. The world's greatest fairs have around 2,000 participants. We have 3,000. It is in itself a big number!" the spokesperson said.

The ITPO is redeveloping its fairground by constructing a modern integrated Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre (IECC), in two phases.

"Our redevelopment plan is going on in the other half of the area. The international exhibition convention centre is being made which when completed in 2019 will include around 15,000 participants which will be a record in the world," he said.

The partner country for the fair in 2017 is Vietnam, and the focus country is Kyrgyzstan.

The expected footfall this year is not more than half of that of last year, the spokesperson added.

"Last year, the figure of our footfall was 14 lakh. This time, since the fair is in half area, we are expecting 60,000 daily on an average over 10 days. First four days are for business."

Even this year Pakistan is not participating in the trade fair.

In IITF 2016, about 285 overseas exhibitors from 27 countries participated amongst which South Korea, Belarus, China, Kuwait, Thailand, Bangladesh and Afghanistan had organised national pavilions.