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It is with joy and excitement that I welcome you all to this Special Media Parley of the 2019 Lagos International Trade Fair (LITF). First, I wish to express our gratitude to you all for taking time out to attend this event despite your busy schedules.

Indeed, we hold you in high esteem and thank you for this singular honour and privilege of playing host to media executives in the commercial capital of Nigeria. I also wish to express our appreciation for your usual support over the years towards the success of the Lagos International Trade Fair.

Gentlemen of the press, you will not forget that towards the planning of the Fair last year, we moved round all your organisations to intimate you with different innovations we brought to the Fair. This year, we are most delighted to play host to you in order to strengthen our relationship. We are doing this to improve on the support and interaction with all our media partners for mutual benefits. This parley will also give us opportunity to clarify issues on LITF.

Let me use this opportunity to inform you that The 2019 Lagos International Trade Fair (LITF), will hold from Friday 1st November to Sunday 10^th November 2019 at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos, (TBS) Nigeria.

Before we go fully into the business of the day, I am pleased to inform you that the Chamber would continue to improve on the Big Changes brought to the Fair last year. This time we are going Bigger and Better. We are pleased to let you know the following:

Number of expected visitors

Over 500,000 over the ten-day period

Space Utilised

Average exhibition space of about 40,000 square metres

Number of exhibitors expected

Average of 2,000 exhibitors annually, with over 200 foreign exhibitors from 16 countries (China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Ghana, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey, Cameroun, Kenya, Singapore, Jamaica, Republic of Benin, South Africa, European Union.)

LITF BIG CHANGES:

Let me again remind us of the Big Changes as introduced last year and will be sustained this year:

Our brand promise from year after year, will continue to be; Connecting Businesses, Creating Value. This shall be sustained this year in our marketing campaign.

Automation of Booking (i.e. online registration and payment).

The online booking and registration as introduced last year will be sustained. We have also introduced more features to the portal to make it more seamless. The portal has since opened. The rule still remains ‘first pay, first serve’.

Zero Tolerance To Noise and LITF Radio

Reports at our disposal indicated that our exhibitors and visitors alike were happy that we could achieve noise-free Fair last year. This shall be sustained this year. We will continue to educate our exhibitors on alternative ways of marketing without excessive use of public address system and music gadgets. Meanwhile, no exhibitor will be allowed to bring in musical instruments and if found will be confiscated. A special team will be deployed to ensure compliance. Our Central Public-Address system will be made available to disseminate information and light music to make the environment welcoming at the LITF Radio. The Radio was found to be effective last year, and it shall be improved and deployed this year.

Improved Sectorisation of Exhibition Area

The improvement recorded in sectorisation of the exhibition area shall be sustained in 2019. We have introduced additional sector called “Conglomerate and Multinationals” for companies that have many products to exhibit.

Exhibitors’ Service Centre

‘Exhibitors’ Service Centre’ was of great benefit to the exhibitors last year and so will be well equipped and open early this year.

Use of Marque for Exhibition

In order to improve the ambiance of the Fair according to international standard, we have been encouraging our exhibitors to use marque tents for their exhibition instead of wooden booths. Some of them keyed to this initiative last year while others will join this year. Our objective is to ultimately create an 100% marque tent environment as while the wooden structures are gradually phased out.

Introducing Africa Hall

We are pleased to inform you that another Big Change the Fair is coming with this year is the introduction of “AFRICA HALL”. The objective of the hall is to bring exhibitors from different countries under the same umbrella to showcase their goods, services, arts, crafts and particularly to display the rich culture of Africans. We believe that Africans must celebrate themselves, hence the LITF platform is the veritable ground to do this. Investment promotion agencies of some African countries have started showing interest and it will be an interesting thing to have Africans to converge in a hall at the Fair.

UNITED BANK FOR AFRICA (UBA) AS THE ‘HEADLINE PARTNER’ OF LITF

I am pleased to announce that the United Bank for Africa (UBA) is the HEADLINE PARTNER of the 2019 Lagos International Trade Fair. The two big brands; the LCCI and the UBA, will be working together to give exciting services to visitors and exhibitors at the Fair. UBA, the Pan African financial institution, has branches in 20 African countries, the United Kingdom, the USA and Paris. It is the belief of the Chamber that UBA possesses a rich corporate culture founded upon strong organisational values and performance-driven operating standards. We will therefore be using the platform of LITF to drive the clientele together from now till the end of this year. Please come and bank with us.

Now to the issues that concern the Media

Our Media Centre will be equipped with dedicated internet facilities to enable uninterrupted communication with your offices.

You will agree with me that your organisation as a MEDIA PARTNER is always a win-win situation. You must have noticed the visibility of your brands on our promotional materials so far this year.

As a MEDIA PARTNER, you will enjoy the following, among others, at 2019 LITF:

Complimentary constructed exhibition space.
VIP Press Gate and Car passes to your representatives (number would be worked out later).
Provision of list of our exhibitors and registered attendees before and after our Trade Promotion events to aid your marketing efforts.
Giving your organization brand visibility and advert opportunities.

As done in the past, we will appreciate your intensified efforts towards:

Giving us advert slots as we may agree with individual organizations.
News mentions/ and or publications of the LCCI Trade Promotion activities.
Coverage of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and other events within the period.
Media interviews for officials of the LCCI on LITF.

Though we believe that some of the terms mentioned above vary from one media house to another. We shall be glad to work out implementation details later. As we solidify this relationship, we will ensure that all the terms of references and deliverables are adhered to while expecting a wide publicity for LITF particularly before the Fair begins.

Remember, our hash tag is #MeetMeAtTheFair

Let’s go ahead and spread it in our different channels and platforms.

Thank you and God bless.

MR. GABRIEL IDAHOSA, FCA

VICE PRESIDENT & CHAIRMAN, TRADE PROMOTION BOARD

LAGOS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE & INDUSTRY.

Featured image source: TV360NIGERIA