Big boost for Made-in-Ghana Fair

The Ghana Trade Fair Company’s annual Grand Sales has been merged with the Made-in-Ghana Fair, the company has announced.

According to Emmanuel Adamitey, a member of the planning committee for this year’s Grand Sales, the reason for the merger “is to give the visitors a bigger platform to do business and revamp the idea of the Grand Sales, and foster the love that is associated with the event every year".

Speaking at a news conference, Mr. Adamitey said the event, which is scheduled to take place September 24 -- October 6, 2014, is targetted at “bringing back all the values to reward our clients and industry players”.

Nana Kwame Ofori-Amanfo, Deputy CEO of Ghana Trade Fair Company, said this year's event is a major collaboration -- a way to create awareness about locally-manufactured products and to reverse the decline in patronage of the fair over the years.

“We are collaborating with the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) to promote local industries as a way of boosting their growth,” he said.

He added that there will be a pavilion solely for the exhibition of locally-manufactured goods.

"Whenever we organise a fair 50 percent of our budget goes into promotion, yet exhibitors complain about low patronage. There are so many media outlets and we select the ones with the widest reach; and if the exhibitors are able to go the extra mile to make it possible for us to address this challenge the results will be tremendous.

“The Ghanaian exhibitor should appreciate the essence of promotion and d learn to support what the company is doing to promote the whole programme. The companies should learn to promote their image and products in order to attract customers to their stands,” he added.

Nevertheless, he was optimistic that the merger will go a long way to address some of the challenges associated with the fairs’ promotion.