2017-09-13Staff Report 2 Staff Reporter Windhoek-As one of the country’s top sponsors of trade expos and trade fairs, Mobile Telecommunications Limited (MTC) supports the idea of merging expos to stretch the allocation of funds by investors. Sponsorship and promotions manager at MTC, Joseph Mundjindi, said that “with the proliferation of expos, each and every town is jumping onto the bandwagon to introduce their own trade expo. It is thus becoming a challenge to host an impactful trade show within regions due to the increased competition for limited resources.” “We share the sentiment in a recent appeal by Bisey /Uirab, Namport CEO, to the organisers and investors of Swakopmund and Walvis Bay expos to look into the possibility of merging as they are within close proximity and could market the region better as a collective. “We have always emphasised and reiterated that the merging of expos will eliminate unnecessary competition and pave the way for quality organizing, teamwork and partnership to elevate the standard of expos in our country to lofty levels.” “The clashing/overlapping of show dates is another problem as more often than seldom you will find that different towns would have scheduled their dates to fall on the same date or period of the month. This creates resource allocation (staff/vehicles/show items) challenges for not only stakeholders and sponsors who are likely to be involved with other shows at the time, but also for patrons who have to plan their travelling,” he added. “We thus call upon the various role players to organize themselves or through ALAN (Association of Local Authorities of Namibia) oganize themselves with the aim of streamlining the calendar year for shows.” MTC says it understands the benefits of spurring local economic development and thus has come to the aid of Okakarara, Okondjatu, Zambezi, Rundu, Keetmanshop, Rehoboth trade expos and the crayfish festival as part of it corporate social responsibility. 2017-09-13Staff Report 2
