GUWAHATI: The 19th edition of International Guwahati Trade Fair was flagged off on Wednesday evening in a glittering function at the Maniram Dewan Trade Centre. Amidst foreign as well as national participants, the function was graced by various dignitaries of national and international repute.
Among the guests present were AK Jha, Director General, NIESBUD, Ministry of MSME, Govt. of India, AK Mittal, Chief General Manager, NSIC Ltd., New Delhi, Habibur Rahman, Minister Counsellor of Bangladesh High Commissioner, New Delhi; Srawut Chankao, representative of the department of international trade promotion ministry of commerce, Royal Thai Government; Supat Sanoy, counselor (commercial), office of commercial affairs, Royal Thai Embassy; JK Mahanta, zonal General Manager, NSIC Ltd.
The lighting of the inaugural lamp was followed by the welcome speech by Jatin Hazarika (Retd. IAS) President, ITFAA, NER. Ever since it’s inception from 1993, the International Guwahati Trade Fair has been the second largest forum for foreign participation after India International Trade Fair at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. He also expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the 100 above participants from the self help groups.
Jha also congratulated ITFAA for organizing such a grand fair in an epic scale. He stated that events like these can offer a very good market in the MSME sector. Besides that, he also enlightened the gathering about a scheme which was recently introduced by the Ministry of MSME. According to this scheme, it offers avenues to all the participants to participate in any trade fair in anywhere in India as well as abroad in any number of times.
Chankao announced that this year’s edition witnessed the participation of around 30 Thai companies.