Exhibition industry was affected gravely by the SARS outbreak, but the trade in Hong Kong and the mainland will be robust again when the disease is fading away, said Katy Lam, general manager of Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd, an international exhibition organizer.

"We are actually in a very preferential position in Hong Kong. Many of the world leading garment-makers have buyers based in Hong Kong," said Lam.

Regarding this year's exhibition market, Katy Lam said it is hard to have long predictions right now, first of all because of SARS outbreak.

"We don't have exhibitions until October 2003, but I quite believe that with the help of the WHO and also the medical field around the world, we will get over the hard period sooner or later," said Lam.

"There are indeed panic at the moment because we don't know till now the exact cause of the disease and how to control it," she said.

"I think the most important thing for the economy is to restore the confidence of the people, and of course the immediate importance is to find out ways to control the disease," she said.

Lam believed that the confidence will be restored. "Business today is global, to stop international trade is almost impossible for the long run," she said, adding "My personal hope is that in two or three months the problem of the disease could be settled."

As one of the oldest exhibition organizers, Messe Frankfurt has been exploring business opportunities in China for dozens of years.Lam, who is responsible for the market of Hong Kong and south China, said fair market of Hong Kong and the mainland is quite different.

"Some of the topic can make success in Hong Kong but may not in the mainland, and vice versa," she said.

"One reason is Hong Kong's market has developed for many years already, thus it's hard to find good new topics of trade show in Hong Kong. But in mainland, the exhibition market is quite new. There are many new topics that we can give."

Lam said the Hong Kong fair is more international and it attracts many more people from around the world. For the fairs in Chinese mainland, most of them are for the domestic market, as well as for the domestic buyers.

"Exhibition industry is a really fast growing industry in Chinese mainland, so you can see a lot of fairs with same or similar topic were held at one time at different cities," Lam said,"I believe in a few years only the quality events will stand out."

Hong Kong is the region that has this trade fair business much earlier than the other part of mainland, so Hong Kong is in a very mature situation in terms of trade fairs, lam said.

"We are monitoring everyday on what new topic we can put into the market, and we judge by the market demand. We must make sure the exhibitors can benefit from it."

"I believe China will be one of the countries that will create a lot more new trade fairs," she added.

(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2003)