MIF attendance drops, fruitful in lusophone contracts

IPIM’s executive director Irene Lau speaks to journalists

Yesterday the curtain fell on the 19th International Trade and Investment Fair (MIF), with lower attendance compared to 2013. Nevertheless, the fair’s organizer, the Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), believes that more attention should be on quality, rather than quantity, when analyzing the success or failure of the fair.
Speaking to the media yesterday afternoon, IPIM executive director Irene Va Kuan Lau revealed that attendance this year has dropped more than 10 percent between Thursday and Saturday, compared to the same period last year.
The decrease is not a surprise for IPIM and Ms Lau attributed the fall to the fluctuation in external factors. “When we look at the exhibitions in the nearby regions, the same situation has arisen as well,” she said.
Ms Lau added that a lot of information regarding companies and their products are already available on the Internet, which may also be a factor leading to the decrease in attendance. Another reason for the drop may be that there are also more exhibitions in Macau where participating enterprises are able to sell their products to attendees, making MIF less unique.
However, she said that the evaluation of MIF’s achievements no longer depends on quantities, such as the number of people in attendance. Instead, IPIM will look at the quality, including the number of transactions, the professionalism displayed and the services IPIM provided. She thinks that the content of MIF this year is richer and that they were able to provide attendees with more information about Macau and participants.
Moreover, the executive director said that Macau has started taking on the role of a platform for Portuguese-
speaking countries, as shown in this year’s MIF. “Macau now is actually a platform. Although the [MIF] attendance has dropped, we have seen growth in other aspects,” she said.
“Through the hard work of all parties, the 19th MIF has made the platform for Portuguese-speaking countries the main theme. Of course, we are also working hard on creating a platform for the European Union as well,” she said.
She revealed that the number of participants from Portuguese-speaking countries has increased by around 20 to 30 percent. This, she believes, is the result of IPIM’s continuous promotion of Macau in various Portuguese-speaking countries throughout the years. She also mentioned the central government’s instructions to create a lusophone food centre in Macau, saying that IPIM has also worked hard on inviting food and beverage companies to join the MIF.
Compared to last year, there is a fourfold increase in the number of contracts signed by lusophone companies this year, rising to more than 40. “People can also feel how spectacular the matching has been in the Portuguese-
speaking countries exhibition area for the food and beverage businesses compared to last year. This is because we put more emphasis on the food and beverage [industry],” she said.
After working on the creation of a lusophone food and beverage centre, the IPIM executive director said that they will not rule out providing more Portuguese-speaking countries-related services so that Macau can better develop its features and build a better platform in next year’s MIF, which will be the fair’s 20th anniversary.
Ms Lau also said that exhibitions nowadays are no longer only for the display of products and services, they are also a “meeting place” for businesses where people can learn the newest business information and market trends. She said that this could be a direction in which MIF can develop in future.

Mixed sales results among participants

Some local and overseas small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) exhibitors have expressed disappointment in their MIF sales this year, with only one Portuguese-speaking company saying that they have achieved satisfying results.
Ms Ho owns a local natural food retailer, which has a booth in the MIF this year. Having participated in the fair for three years, she said that consumption is far lower than before, with this year’s sales only equal to one-third of that in the previous year. Although she has already predicted a fall in sales, the outcome is worse than she expected.
The fact that there are many businesses that sell products similar to Ms Ho’s is believed to have lowered their competitiveness. She also observed a significant drop in the number of tourists in attendance.
Another SME who was dissatisfied with this year’s results is Mr Gou from Taiwan. This is the fifth year his toy company took part in the MIF. He said that this year’s attendance and sales are both unexpectedly disappointing. In fact, their sales this year were only a third of that in 2013. He said that they will not return to MIF for their sixth year.
The disappointment of the two SMEs is certainly not shared by Casa Angola International CEO Rui Pedro Moreira, who spoke to the Times at the beginning of MIF about his plan to introduce his company’s soy products to Macau. He revealed yesterday that his company had acquired a very good contract for their soy beverage. He believes that the lack of Portuguese brand soy beverages in the Macau market is a factor. Their Portuguese wine has also proven popular, as shown by the empty wine shelves in his booth.
However, he has observed a communication problem here, saying that it is difficult to communicate with mainland businesses due to the language barrier. Mr Moreira thinks that meeting and speaking with mainland businesses is a good opportunity and a step towards building a future relationship.