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| Name: | THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA |
| Date: | 2007-12-30 |
THE MIDDLE EAST  In the GCC countries, consumer products and education are the leading exhibition sectors followed by real estate and building. For the rest of the Middle Eastern countries, Industrial and Engineering trade fairs take the lead, followed by Building & construction and Agriculture. The constant growth of the number of exhibitions, adjustment of the infrastructures and the recent tendencies to support investment, altogether anticipate a promising view for the industry future in the Middle East. However, deficiency of qualified personnel, weak global promotion, bureaucracy and political conflicts may have their negative roles hampering the thrust.During the last year, a total number of 600 trade fairs and exhibitions were held in 30 cities of the 13 Middle East countries. The Middle East covers 34 purpose-built exhibition venues providing a total indoor exhibition space of 633,206 m2. Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have six venues each and Tehran Permanent Fairground stands as the largest indoor space venue with 120,000m2. Venue expansions and new constructions are planned in five of the Middle East countries viz. Iran, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates providing additional indoor exhibition space of 146,500 m2 by the year 2010. AFRICA: Yet, the exhibition industry is strongly present in some other parts of the Continent. South Africa, in an extremely heterogeneous scene to many Black African countries, stands as the exhibition industry giant both in Africa and the Middle East. A relatively prosperous exhibition zone is found in the North, adjacent to the Mediterranean: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Among others, Tanzania, Kenya, Senegal, Mozambique and Zambia have significant exhibition industries. With reference to the exhibition sectors, General International/regional Trade Fairs along with Consumer events take the lead in Africa. The second most prominent sector is IT and Telecom followed by Agriculture. No proof of regular and professional exhibition industry could be traced in almost half the total number of the African countries. No purpose-built exhibition infrastructures were found, nor regular exhibition figures worth mentioning. In the 24 African countries included in the scope of this study, 49 purpose-built exhibition venues were identified. South Africa accounts for 25% of the total number of venues identified in Africa, with 12 venues spread over four cities. Tunisia follows with four venues and Tanzania and Zambia have hree venues each. Johannesburg (South Africa), a city with six venues, totals an indoor exhibition space of 105,178 m2; Cairo comes second with 75,687 m2, and Algiers third with 50,000 m2.  Remarkable exhibition spaces exceeding 25,000 m2 are found in other African cities: Pretoria, Tunis, Casablanca, Dakar and Dar es Salaam. The information available made it possible to document 369 trade fairs and exhibitions organized in the year 2006, in 32 cities and 24 countries. South Africa accounted for 75 trade fairs and exhibitions, followed by Tunisia 62, Egypt 47 and Algeria 46. Johannesburg is the # 1 city regarding the number of exhibitions reaching 50 events, Cairo 47 and Algiers 46.GENERALLY, IN BOTH THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA, it is quite clear that there are three market leaders: at the very east: Iran, at the very south: South Africa, and the United Arab emirates. Up to the end of 2006, Iran holds the biggest number of events, and enjoys the largest indoor space. South Africa has the biggest number of venues, and the largest total indoor/outdoor space. Depending on a unique economic case, UAE keeps a steadfast pace with Iran and South Africa, although it is much smaller in area and population. Several countries had already proved themselves as the exhibition industry market challengers in the Middle East and Africa: Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and KSA. Other countries are considered as market developers, due to the relatively small general volume of exhibition industry, albeit to different extents, compared to the leaders and challengers above. Yet some of them are expected to achieve tangible progress in the future, especially where the exhibition infrastructure is planned to be modernized or renewed, e.g Qatar, Libya and Kenya. |
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