More success with tangible projects
CEFA has a mission to promote long-termintegration of new EU members using the mediumof trade fairs as a forum for know-how transfer.
George Cojocaru, chief executive of Romexpo in Bucharest uses the motto "think globally, act regionally" to describe the work of the Central European Fair Alliance, or CEFA, that recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. The celebrations in mid June were seized upon as an opportunity to intensify the network; after all, the CEFA relies heavily on mutual support. "We are convinced that with tangible projects we can gradually become even more successful", said Manfred Wutzlhofer, chairman of Messe München and CEFA chairman after the annual general meeting in Bolzano, Italy. The German expo company lends more than just mutual support to the network and provides grants. Wutzlhofer calls this "investment in the future". This community of interests of eastern and southern European exhibition companies was founded in January 1995 at exhibition locations Bratislava, Brno, Budapest, Graz, Klagenfurt, Ljubljana, Munich, Prague, Vienna and Zagreb against the background of the process of European integration. Four years later it was given the name CEFA.
Interest in the activities of the exhibition companies grew quickly. Between 2000 and 2004 the exhibition companies of Sarajevo, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Bolzano, Skopje, Bucharest and Plovdiv, and the GHM - Gesellschaft für Handwerksmessen München - joined the initiative. So currently, the CEFA has 16 members. Aims of the cooperation from the outset were exchange of information, implementation of and support with PR activities, cooperation within the various fields of expertise, and training and exchange of employees. All with the aim of providing customers to the various trade fairs with more efficient access to the international market and development of regional markets, too, while providing overarching information about the exhibition locations in the alliance. At EU level, the CEFA is working towards establishing a network with the institutions of the European Union. CEFA and Centrex - the International Exhibition Statistics Union -signed an agreement in 2004 to promote cooperation between organisations in the exhibition industry in central and eastern Europe.
m+a report Nr.6 / 2005 vom 23.09.2005
m+a report vom 23. September 2005