Central Europe’s fair organisers met in Bucharest

Bucharest – On June 15-17, the Romexpo complex in Bucharest hosted the CEFA Annual General Meeting, attended by high-level officials of member and non-member states. CEFA stands for the Central European Fair Alliance, counting at present 16 members, which include the most prestigious fair and exhibition organisers in the region: Belgrade Fair, Balzano Fair, Inchemba a.s. Bratislava, Hungexpo Budapest, Graz Messe, Klagenfurt Messe, Ljubljana Fair, Munchen Messe, Novi Sad Fair, Plovdiv Fair, Icheba Prague, Sarajevo Fair, Skopje Fair, Vienna – Reed Exh, Zagreb Fair and, of course, Romexpo SA Bucharest. Present in the CEFA General Meeting were Manfred Wutzlhofer – Chairman of the board of the Munich Fair, also the CEFA President, Janos Barabas – Executive Manager of Hungexpo and head of the UFI Committee on Education, Reinhold Marsoner – Executive Manager of Balzano Fair, Davorin Spevec – General Manager of Zagreb fair, Franz Reisbeck, Executive Manager and Chairman of the GHM board. The host of the event was Romexpo SA Chairman & CEO George Cojocaru, who also holds an important position in CEFA. “For the year 2006 I am the President in office of the Alliance, an office which follows the Vice-President position held in 2005. Worth mentioning is that these appointments came very soon after Romexpo SA became a member of CEFA, which is very relevant. Basically, I was assigned the mandate of supporting the CEFA activity through new measures which strengthen the activity of the Alliance,” George Cojocaru told Amos News agency, quoted by “Cronica Romana” daily. A daring, yet feasible project The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry – UFI – the most important association in the field has over 300 members covering five continents and working at several levels. The survey carried out under Janos Barabas’ coordination revealed the need to establish a higher education institution with subjects strictly related to the trade fair and exhibition industry. Education is one of the key elements of the development of activity in this industry, Janos Barabas pointed out, and the training of exhibition experts and, in parallel, of exhibition visitors is absolutely necessary. This is a daring, but feasible project. The first step for the establishment of this Academy involved the collection of a database including information on the fields already covered by existing universities in CEFA and UFI member states, and the identification and establishment of a logistic structure referring to the future training programmes. George Cojocaru’s project is openly intended at training a workforce with an ideal level of education, able to work in the trade fair industry. Romexpo SA Bucharest Chairman & CEO George Cojocaru announced in a press conference on the occasion of the CEFA annual meeting that negotiations had reached an advanced stage for organisation of next year’s SIAB motor show in the Romexpo exhibition complex. For SIAB to be able to come to Romexpo, a new exhibition pavilion needs to be built, with a 12,000 sq. m. area, for which a construction project has already been drawn up.