25 Jun 2020

Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC) has planned mitigating factors to compensate for the annual Global Expo which has been put on halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking in an interview, the executive director of brand management at BITC, Ms Kutlo Moagi confirmed that the annual expo has been cancelled until further notice due to COVID-19. 

“After we had seen a significant increase in the number of international exhibitions such as Global Expo around the world also being impacted by COVID-19, and eventually cancelled, we found it befitting to devise ways to host the expo virtually,” Ms Moagi stated. 

She highlighted that most advanced countries had resorted to hosting their exhibitions online, adding that since it would be their first online exhibition experience, they came up with interventions to benchmark from countries which had already embarked on the new online platform.

“Following the planned interventions, BITC has registered to participate in two international expos being; Canton Fair in China and the Eastern Cape Virtual Exposition in South Africa. From that we will map a way forward to deliver our first virtual expo locally,”Ms Moagi indicated.

She said depending on COVID-19 restrictions in terms of social distancing, they would still want to host the Global Expo in the manner that Batswana were used to next year. She, however, said if nothing changes they would continue with the new online platform. 

For the investment and trade conference that formed a significant part of the Global Expo in the yesteryears, she said they were working around the clock to see whether it would be possible to employ the use of their webinar platforms to showcase their events. 

Ms Moagi reiterated that all planned initiatives would be delivered taking into consideration the level of readiness and appetite of their target audience.

“It is important to note that the world over everybody is moving online as a result of the COVID-19 restrictions, and the positive response from around the globe suggests that we cannot allow this hurdle to stop people from doing business,” she added. 

In addition, Ms Moagi said their priority was to establish linkages for local businesses based on their interests, particularly with international buyers and businesses operating within a similar niche. 

She emphasised that one of the platforms set for creating linkages for local businesses was through their business to business matchmaking initiative, which she with online platforms it would be easy to replicate. Ends