Business news

8 Dec 2020

Belarus to showcase food products at Gulfood expo in UAE

An archive photo

MINSK, 8 December (BelTA) – Belarus’ exposition will go on display at the world's largest annual food and beverage trade expo Gulfood due in Dubai, the UAE on 21-25 February, BelTA learned from the Belinterexpo exhibition company of the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BelCCI).

Gulfood annually draws around 100,000 specialists from 192 countries, which makes participation in the event a good opportunity to launch supplies of goods to all continents, Belinterexpo said. Gulfood is called the main event of the year for the worlds’ food industry. It annually brings together around 5,000 exhibitors from all over the world.

The United Arab Emirates is the world's third largest re-export market behind Hong Kong and Singapore. Its demand for food products increases by 30% every year. More than 90% of food products in the Persian Gulf region, which includes Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia, is imported through the UAE. “The UAE market is a premium market and has a rather high import capacity for such products as poultry and beef, which offers good prospects for Belarusian exporters,” Belinterexpo quoted Aleksei Bogdanov, Head of the Main Department for Foreign Economic Activities of the Belarusian Agriculture and Food Ministry, as saying.

The Belarusian exposition at Gulfood has already become traditional: Belarus will participate in the event for the sixth time. The expo benefits Belarusian enterprises. For example, Belarusian exhibitors concluded contracts worth a total of $13 million in 2019 and over $3 million in 2020. Belarus’ exposition is titled as Belarus. The Taste of Nature.

“We signed contracts with four companies as we participated in the Belarus. The Taste of Nature exposition and thus secured our foothold on the Middle Eastern market,” Director General of the Primemilk dairy company Anatoly Belyavsky noted.

The participants of the Belarusian exposition will also take part in the business program that includes seminars, conferences, and B2B meetings that will help them find new business partners.

“The expo will be an offline event. The organizers are keen to meet all the safety requirements and recommendations of the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI): taking visitors’ temperature, imposing a mandatory use of face masks, limiting the number of visitors, and so on. Apart from that, the Gulfood organizers launched a special mobile application to help the participants search for potential business partners and schedule meetings, which will make it easier to organize talks,” Belinterexpo said.

Belarus. The Taste of Nature is organized by the Belinterexpo exhibition operator of the BelCCI, with the support of the Belarusian Embassy in the UAE, the Belarusian Agriculture and Food Ministry, and the Belarusian state food industry concern Belgospishcheprom.