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Trade fair not ’just another market day’
2006-05-03 08:43:50
By Editor
In July every year, the Board of External Trade (BET) organises the famous Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair (DITF).
The annual event has become a major market exhibition at which international producers, traders, and consumers meet either to barter or to buy and sell goods and services.
Trade fairs date back to the days before the development of transportation and marketing.
Fairs furnished the primary opportunity for the exchange of merchandise, and served as centers of community social life.
Among the ancient Greeks and Romans for instance, the days of the public market were also used to announce new public laws.
In early Christian times special occasions for marketing were frequently attached to religious gatherings, notably those of pilgrims coming to a town to celebrate a special feast.
During feudal Europe, fairs were the major means of exchanging commodities not produced for subsistence. Fairs were incorporated by royal charter and had their own officials, laws and courts.
Major trade routes affected the growth of individual fairs.
Of the variety of goods traded at such fairs, cloth was probably the most important.
Today, commerce has become an expanding and regular part of economic life.
Globalisation, and in particular the Internet, have diluted the importance of trade fairs in Europe and USA, and to a large extent were replaced by outdoor and indoor general markets.
The DITF has of late greatly changed its landscape by displaying a variety of advanced industrial wares (such as computers), and important technological innovations are equally exhibited.
Indigenous visitors to DITF grounds from all walks of life, however, incorrectly see the trade fair as just another market day…a shopping mall of some sort.
The BET should conduct public awareness campaigns particularly directed to small and medium entrepreneurs with a view to change their mindset about DITF.
It is not wholly supposed to be a colossal auction mart where deals are inked, but also a learning event; as for instance, how other entrepreneurs excel in doing similar lines of business.
Like when President Jakaya Kikwete was astonished to see a 1.5 tonne cow reared in Zimbabwe, and is seeking into the possibility of inviting Zimbabwean livestock keepers to DITF in July.
This strategy is meant to create an opportunity for Tanzanians to imitate modern livestock husbandry right at the fair and later resolve to adopt new technologies for animal keeping.
Agricultural fairs-held to improve farming methods, stocks, and crops-have been particularly important in the history of the United States.
Some exhibitors devote their stalls solely to commercial display of superior products and excellent suppliers directed toward businessmen.
Even in such stalls, it is possible to learn a business hint, like salesmanship, customer care and packaging skills.
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