Restarting of Exhibitions to jumpstart India's Economic revival

NEW DELHI - July 8, 2020 - PRLog -- With Covid-19 pandemic damaging entire business ecosystems across the world, exhibitions happen to be amongst the most serious impacted.

The cancellation of all major exhibitions and events globally have created survival threat in the exhibitions industry and the entire value chain of organisers, venues, stand fabricators, logistics providers, and other service providers is grappling with cash flow issues.

The Indian exhibition industry is a Rs.23,800 crores monolith with more than 550 events conducted annually in the organised sector. The exhibition industry sector enables trade/business transactions of over Rs. 3,00,000 crores, boosting and supporting the growth of various spectrum of industries while also being a major employment generator supporting livelihood of lakhs of people in the country.

The Indian Exhibition Industry Association (IEIA) in its last statement released in April had summed up the loss up to approximately 15% of the total events conducted annually in the organised sector, with a resultant estimated loss of Rs. 3,570 crores during Q1 of the year. As the pandemic rages on with no short term end in sight,  the estimated loss as of today exceeds  Rs. 5,000 crores.

In its appeal to the Government of India, IEIA has urged the government to create  an "Exhibitions in India" economic stimulus support package and offer a 10% incentive to Indian exhibition management companies to organise shows in India and help kickstart the economy,

IEIA requests are in  alignment with the union government's vision of 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat'.

Explaining the importance of exhibitions, S. Balasubramanian, President, IEIA stated, "Exhibitions are the lifeline of trade and economic development in any country.  Though Covid- 19 has had an unprecedented impact on exhibition industries across the world, many countries in Asia and Europe have re-opened exhibitions with new norms and economic activities are gaining momentum.  It's time for the Government in India to open up exhibitions to fast pace the trade and economic activities and provide  employment opportunities to  revitalise the Indian economy back to pre-Covid days quickly. Indian exhibition industry stand committed to ensure the safety of all the stakeholders during organisation of Trade shows."

IEIA has prepared the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for conducting exhibitions in a safe and secure manner. These have been submitted to Ministry of Commerce, DPIIT, Ministry of Commerce & Industry and Ministry of Tourism.

For more details, contact ed@ieia.in or visit https://www.ieia.in/