The Plovdiv International Fair on growth course

Bulgaria, with its strategic position at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, has been developing vigorously for a number of years and its appeal as a production and sales location for internationally operating companies wishing to cover south-eastern Europe is growing.

Bulgaria's second largest city Plovdiv has a geostrategically favourable location on the Thracian plane where the traditional trade routes from the North Sea to the Black Sea and from the Baltic to the Mediterranean cross. Ever since 1892, when the first industrial and agricultural exhibition was held there, Plovdiv has been Bulgaria's trade fair site. Plovdiv International Fair boasts the largest venue in the Balkans with a modern convention centre, 24 exhibition halls and spacious outdoor areas. This year, it is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its membership of the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry UFI.
Plovdiv's atmosphere becomes noticeably more international each spring and autumn, when exhibitors and visitors from all over the world come to the city to present their products and do business. Around a hundred days before Bulgaria's entry into the EU in January 2007, the 62nd International Technical Fair from September 25 to 30 had to open outside the venue's gates because the 100, 000 m2 of exhibition space was completely overloaded by 3,548 exhibitors from 49 countries: "If this goes on we will have to open the autumn fair from the banks of the Maritsa river", quips the Bulgarian economics and energy minister Rumen Ovcharov.
He had to turn away more than a hundred companies for lack of suitable exhibition space, regrets the director of the Plovdiv Trade Fair Company Iordan Radev and has announced extensive plans for conversion and expansion. Radev thinks this will require a change to the present ownership of the wholly state-owned trade fair company; both the city of Plovdiv and private investors could buy into a capital increase to finance the development of the trade fair. A trade fair hotel and a multi-storey car park are currently under construction. The Plovdiv autumn fair is the most important capital goods exhibition in south-eastern Europe. Like the Hanover Fair, it is a set of ten specialist fairs that have been staged for a number of years. This year, too, Machine Building with 1131 exhibitors from 35 countries was the largest single trade fair ahead of Stroytech - The City specialising in architecture and building and Autotech for automotive industry suppliers.
Because of the obvious catch-up requirement in environmental protection and infrastructure in south-eastern Europe, the other specialist tradeshows also have much potential for development: Aquatech for water management and technology, Chemical for the chemical industry, Eltech for electronics and electrical engineering, Eneco for energy and ecology, Infotech for information technology and PC-World for software. The Plovdiv Motor Show, at which international car manufacturers show their latest models, is especially popular with the Bulgarian public. The trade fair is rounded off with a comprehensive accompanying programme including co-operation exchanges, conferences and specialist seminars.
Naturally, most of the exhibitors came from Bulgaria, 1353 in all, and traditionally Germany has always been the best represented foreign country, with 556 companies this year, ahead of Italy and Turkey, which presented themselves in two separate halls as the official partners of this year's trade fair. As at previous events, several German states, including Bavaria, the Saarland, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and the central states appeared on collective stands.
In addition to the technical fair in the autumn and the spring fair for consumer goods, the Plovdiv annual program includes five further international events that are allowed to advertise with the UFI quality seal: the agricultural show AGRA, the trade fair for viticulture and wine making Vinaria, the fair for medicine, dentistry and balneology Medicus, Dento, Galenia, the printing fair Printcom and the food fair Foodtech. There are also numerous other fairs and exhibitions, such as Roma World specialising in Roma handicrafts and culture from October 26 to 29.
Although Bulgaria's second largest city Plovdiv is clearly the trade fair capital of the country, the Inter Expo Centre (IEC) in Sofia managed by the Bulgarreklama agency has developed into a serious competitor over the past few years. The exhibition and convention complex IEC may be a lot smaller than that of the market leader, but the event schedule of Bulgarreklama, which has been a member of UFI since 2004, is scarcely less extensive. The site of the Inter Expo Centre is currently being expanded; a fourth exhibition hall is due for completion in November, which will enlarge the exhibition surface to 20,000 m2. Well-known trade fairs in Sofia include Bulgaria Building Week organised jointly with the Hamburg-based company planetfair and the Bait Expo held from October 31 to November 5 on information technology.
Starting from a low level, Bulgaria's economy has been developing vigorously for some years at the crossroads between Europe and Asia and its appeal as a production and sales location for internationally operating companies wishing to cover south-eastern Europe is growing. For this reason and in view of the progressing integration of Bulgaria into the European single market, good growth prospects are expected for the Bulgarian trade fair locations in Plovdiv und Sofia over the next few years.
Frank Stier

m+a report Nr.7 / 2006 vom 27.10.2006
m+a report vom 27. Oktober 2006