The fair will be held at the Ongwediva Trade Fair Centre from August 27 to September 4.

This year's trade fair will be officially opened by President Sam Nujoma, Egumbo, who is also the Acting Chief Executive Officer for Ongwediva Town, announced.

The fact that more than 300 exhibitors have already booked and confirmed their participations showed there was great interest in this year's Trade Fair, said Egumbo.

He announced that this year the fair had attracted the participation of new companies such as BMW auto dealers, Club Motors, and a growing number of Ministries as well as parastatals.

"We are also expecting the number of visitors to grow this year to between 48 000 and 50 000, compared to last year's 40 690."

Regarding foreign exhibitors, Egumbo said that so far they already had bookings for exhibitors from Indonesia, Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Tanzania.

Egumbo hoped that local businessmen and women would use this opportunity to engage in business discussions and to look for potential joint ventures.

They should also promote Namibian products and services to local, regional and international buyers while at the same time sharing the potential rewards with regional and international counterparts.

As in the past two years, Egumbo said that this year they would also incorporate the Agricultural Show as part of the trade fair in order to afford the farming community an opportunity to showcase their best cattle, small stock and other agricultural products.

He said that they were doing this in collaboration with the farmers' co-operatives in order to attract maximum participation of farmers.

The fair will also promise a lot of fun and entertainment for the general public - both adults and children.

"There will be live artists, beauty pageants, fireworks and lots more." Egumbo said.

In terms of development, Egumbo said that the committee had initiated significant changes to the appearance of the Trade Fair Centre to make it customer-friendly.

It had also built new trade facilities for small businesses, commonly known as kambashus or kiosks, and that they had also extended the fence of the centre further to the northern side, to make special provision for future developments.

He also promised that a combined security force composed of the Namibian Police and guards from private security companies would be in place.

An Ongwediva Annual Trade Fair fundraising gala dinner was organised over the weekend for business people where the guests bought tables for N$2 500 in groups.

More than N$100 000 were collected.

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