New Delhi, Nov. 22 The India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) will work in tandem with the country’s various export promotion councils in what would be a “partner in progress” strategy in the trade domain to highlight India’s growing strength and resilience in merchandise goods and services exports.
Disclosing this to Business Line here in an interview, the ITPO Chairman and Managing Director, Dr Subas Pani, said that as part of its “new format” this year – by dividing the fair into two segments with first five days exclusively to business-to-business interaction and November 19 to 27 dedicated to general public – “we took up a proactive stance by circulating the new format to all the three chambers of commerce and industry – CII, FICCI and Assocham”.
Dr Pani stated that the ITPO got an “excellent response” as the change over, which usually takes a couple of years to stabilise, began functioning well within days.
During his visit to Techmart, an annual event within the fair, he found that the exhibition being organised by the National Small Industries Corporation evoked a lot of business enquiries and one of the vendors got several confirmed orders and a draft for Rs 10 lakh for a machine to be sold.
‘We can do a lot’
Dr Pani said this shows that if the new format is structured properly, “we can do a lot” as the primary role of the fair is not only to promote international trade but also domestic trade.
He said 15,000 business visitors and 100 business delegation would visit the fortnight-long fair.
His approach to the “whole trade fair is that we have to project India as a large provider of goods and services and also as a large purchaser of goods and services so that we can provide the best benefits to the people as customers.”
The ITPO chief said that the fair plays only a complementary role to the trade policy and provides a platform.
“The biggest attraction of our trade fair vis-À-vis the international buyers is that they get footfall of two million people which is unprecedented in terms of coverage. That is why a number of people do their product launch with foreign partners here as a test-marketing,” he said.
Focus area
Asked how he is going to transform the organisation into a focused entity exclusively for trade promotion, he said his priority is to bring a customer-orientation attitude within the organisation.
The three major stakeholders in the organisation are exhibitors, visitors and employees.
While every effort is being made to ensure that exhibitors and visitors get the maximum support, employees and other community partners such as Delhi Government, Delhi Transport Corporation, Delhi Metro and Municipal Corporation of Delhi will also benefit by the fair, said the Chairman.
Use of technology
As use of information technology is relatively low, “we have to consolidate the initiatives already there and go in for human resource in internalising IT usage. If we internalise IT, then our management will become better,” he said. His stint in Election Commission to bring electronic voting machines system helped him in the task of what he describes as “technology osmosis”.
Dr Pani also emphasised the need for ushering in a couple of major events that is suited to the strength of the Indian economy; and one pertains to design exhibition for which discussions have started.
Efforts were also on to expand the activities of the ITPO’s outfit in Bangalore and Chennai and customise the events being proposed there, he added.
Source : Business Line