Aulic presents specialised indoor expo, makes 44,000sqm space ready for exhibitors

As a form of deviation from the formal method of holding exhibitions, Aulic Nigeria Limited, in association with Ukraine International Exhibition Centre and Heritage International Business Concept U. GMBH, Germany, is organising a specialised trade exhibition at the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex.

The specialised trade fair, the third in the series, is geared towards matching upcoming businesses, producers with suppliers and end-users, with the theme ‘Boosting Nigeria’s Development through Creative and Innovative Industrialisation,’ comes up between June 6 and 15. A major attraction for this year’s expo is that, for the first time, an indoor expo space of approximately 44,000 square metres have been made available by the organisers to accommodate exhibitors from all over the world at the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex.

According to Chika Ezeh, managing director/CEO, Aulic Nigeria Limited, in a recent press briefing in Lagos, in this expo, it is expected that deals would be signed as foreign business promoters are coming to look out for partners for the goods and services they would be introducing.

“This has become imperative because new trends are emerging in trade promotions globally. To follow the trends, we have developed strategies for specialised and solo-trade exhibitions. General trade exhibitions are phasing out. While there are still a few of them held in the complex…, we encourage specialised and solo exhibitions more.

“In this year’s expo, participants will learn new and better ways of doing things, establish partnerships to reduce the cost of production, and develop as many businesses they can accommodate,” Ezeh said, saying however that the number of foreigners coming would largely depend on the number of partners – Nigerians – willing to do business with them.

So far, 29 business groups have registered, about 100 foreign businesses have sent representations and eight have sent in their goods, she said, as the company also hopes to use the platform to create jobs for Nigerians. To this effect, it has establised a business development group willing to recruit for foreign firms, and all Aulic Nigeria Limited will do is to stand as guarantor for the recruits.

On the legal implications on cross-border trade promotions, Daniel Udeh, director, legal services, Aulic Nigeria, said “laws are determined by the contracts involved. There are some basic laws that take care of businesses across the world, such as before any business takes off in Nigeria, it must first of all be registered. So, there would be no straightjacket formula concerning any MoU that would be signed during this expo.”