UIS this weekend hosts its first-ever expo.
Although not in the same league as shows like the Ongwediva Trade Fair and the Windhoek Show, about 22 exhibitors from as far afield as Oshakati and Windhoek have booked stands to showcase their wares and services on Friday and Saturday, organised by SMEs Compete.
Products on display will include garments for men, women and children, footwear, jewellery, beauty products, knitwear and furniture. The event incorporates an entertainment programme too in the form of a talent contest. Additionally grade 10 students at the local high school, Petrus Ganeb Secondary School, will attend SMEs Compete’s introduction to entrepreneurship presentation, according to the firm’s director, Claudine Mouton. Due to the high number of students, Mouton says her fellow director and co-founder of SMEs Compete, Danny Meyer, will make two presentations so that all 68 youngsters can fully participate in the interactive presentation that has proved to be popular with youngsters in other centres around the country.Nestling at the base of Namibia’s highest mountain, the Brandberg, the former mining town is slowly rising from a deep slumber. When the South African-owned mining house Imcor ceased tin-mining operations at Uis in the late 1980s, many wrote off the town.This negativity did not deter a small band of brave entrepreneurs like Basil Calitz from taking a gamble by investing in Uis. Calitz and his partners bought the mine’s former social club and converted it into a hotel. He strongly supports the initiative to hold an expo in Uis and has made available the facilities at his business at no charge.Retired executive of the parastatal Namport, Mike van der Meer, is another entrepreneur who took a business risk. Together with Inecia Brandt he opened a hardware and building material store. Their firm has booked the largest stand at the Uis Expo ’10.’As we have demonstrated in Rosh Pinah, Arandis, Walvis Bay and Lüderitz, the Uis Expo will become an annual event,’ said Danny Meyer.Market access events, like the one in Uis, are an important component of SMEs Compete’s work, he said, adding that the next one takes place in Arandis over the last weekend in October, followed by one in Oshakati on the last weekend of November.
