Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Gone are the days when exhibitions were only treated as events that facilitate buyers and sellers to make deals.
With the globalisation of world trade, exhibitions expanded in scale in the region, and people began to realise the benefits that conventions and exhibitions can bring to the local tourist industry and related business service sectors.
The success of the region's external trade today is inseparable from the robust growth of its exhibition industry over the past decade.
The exhibition industry in the Middle East has taken off for sure and the economic rewards are widespread. Benefits include the generation of expenditure and jobs for exhibition and other service industries and supporting sectors, including hotels, food and beverage, retail, stand design and construction, and logistics and freight forwarding.
No one knows this better than Bahrain-based Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions whose Gulf Industry Fair 2010 provided the impetus to Bahrain to break the shackles of the global downturn and move on the path of rapid industrialisation.
Billed as the most comprehensive industrial fair in the Middle East, the event has provided an ideal platform for several industries to set up units in the region besides emerging as a strong catalyst for business.
Apart from networking, the show presented the region's industrial sector an opportunity to highlight its products and services and interact with international players.
Hit by the economic downturn in the Western markets, companies from East Europe and the US have used the fair to tie up with Bahraini businesses to sell their products and services in the region.
The third Gulf Industry Fair is proof that the kingdom is performing well despite global economic pressures, said His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.
"The Gulf Industry Fair is a good index reflecting the healthy national economy," he said inaugurating the show in which a total of 84 exhibitors from more than 15 countries showcased their products and services.
"Indeed, the future of the kingdom lies in industry," the corporate leadership of the kingdom who attended the Gulf Industry Forum held along with the fair asserted.
Bahrain's industrial sector today accounts for 45 per cent of the country's GDP, registering a healthy growth of 19 per cent over 2008 and 28 per cent in 2007 over 2006. Of this, 16 per cent accounts for manufacturing alone.
"The industrial sector is a strategic option for GCC states to diversify revenues and reduce their dependence on oil-based economies. The tangible opportunities in the industrial sector are proving their capacity to adapt to the global crisis," the Premier said.
He stressed the importance of promoting highly-productive and value-added industries and also highlighted the need for GCC countries to form free trade agreements with countries to promote Gulf industries.
Spearheading industrial growth in the country is essentially a three-fold approach that included initiation of bold policy initiatives, upgradation of manufacturing and continuous investment in the country's industrial infrastructure, said Dr Hassan Fakhro, Minister of Industry and Commerce.
The fair was also held at a time when Bahrain has itself unveiled two key components to its drive to establish the kingdom as the industrial hub for the Northern Gulf - the Khalifa bin Salman Port and Salman Industrial City. These two state-of-the-art facilities provide a massive impetus to the realisation of Bahrain's objective to grow the kingdom's industrial sector to the stage where industry becomes a significant proportion of the country's GDP.
Khalifa Bin Salman Port's complementary neighbouring facility the Bahrain Logistics Zone (BLZ) is slated to play a crucial role in developing Bahrain as a regional transhipment hub, said General Organisation of Sea Ports (GOP) chairman, Shaikh Daij bin Salman Al Khalifa at the Gulf Industry Forum.
The BLZ, which is operated by the GOP and set to be operational by year's end, will help propel the kingdom's economic development through adding value to the activities of companies involved in exports, imports and re-exports.
Logistic services are an important link in the supply chain and a logistics zone, like the Bahrain Logistics Zone, aims to make many of these services available at the doorsteps of industrial companies at competitive costs. The benefits of a logistics zone as support for industrial development are significant. For instance, the BLZ enhances Bahrain's existing sea, air and road infrastructure and makes the kingdom an attractive economic proposition for the industrial sector.
It focuses on adding value to exports, imports and re-exports by providing modern warehousing facilities and accommodating support activities such as component assembly, labelling, packaging and re-packaging and a host of other services.
The Logistics Zone also forms a nucleus around which several auxiliary industries and businesses grow, all of which help to generate wealth for the economy and employment opportunities for the local workforce. The availability of logistics services close at hand, through logistics zones, enables the industries to concentrate their efforts and resources on core manufacturing activities.
