It was on a busy Saturday morning that we caught up with A V Varadharajan, Vice-President of Coimbatore District Small Industries Association Intec (COINTEC) at the CODISSIA Trade Fair Centre.

COINTEC's first phase of construction has been completed. What are the plans for the second and third phases?

We first want to stabilise this and make it a popular exhibition centre in the south.  Since this is the first and the biggest permanent exhibition centre in South India, so we want to project it as THE trade fair centre of the South and our aim in the future is to make this the ‘Hanover of India’.  In the second and third phase we are going to have a convention centre of international standards and the work will start in another 6 months. 

What went into the construction of the Trade Fair Centre ?

The Architects for the project are Design Tech from Chennai. Structural designing is by Dr. L S Jayagopal. And Vijayraja and Company of Coimbatore did the construction.  The project commenced on the 10^th of June 1999 and finished in record time (just 160 days) on the 31^st of December 1999. The total investment in COINTEC has been to the tune of Rs.12 crore to date.  We have put Rs. 4 crore from CODISSIA and for the rest of the amount we have taken a loan of RS 8 crore from Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).

What are the salient features of the facilities offered at the Trade Fair Centre?

This is the biggest pillar-free hall in the country.  Heavy trucks, with loads upto 40 tonnes, can get inside. Material can be lifted using heavy-duty cranes, without causing any inconvenience to nearby stalls.  This is because this is a well-planned centre.  We have taken a lot of input from the Germans, who are experts in Trade Fair Management.  The total built-up exhibition area is 10,500 square metres.  The headroom inside the exhibition hall is 10.5 metres.  There are four entries to the hall, each 5.4 metres high and 4.6 metres wide.  The strong industrial flooring can exhibit heavy exhibits. The roof of this pillar-less exhibition hall has galvalume sheets imported from Australia. There is enough captive power. There is the capability of providing 1 lakh litres of portable water per day, whenever a fair is on.  There is also an air-conditioned hall of 230 square metres on the mezzanine floor.  This can be used for conferences, workshops or any other meetings.  There is another hall of the same size for use of the Trade Organizer’s.

What has been industry response to this permanent trade fair centre?

We have already quite a number of fairs, which have been very successful. We are also going to get people from outside the country.  Some fair organisers from Germany (‘the country of trade fairs’) have evinced keen interest in developing this as a Asian version of German fairs.  Apart from Germany, they are conducting some exhibitions outside Germany also.  They are planning to have one or two fairs here.  Messe Dusseldorf International GmbH from Germany have asked us to block the entire complex for their fair to be held in February 2001.  Even in our INTEC we had 12 foreign companies. From next year we will have more. 

Exhibitions / Events held so far at the Trade Fair Centre?

INTEC 2000 was the first fair for the Trade Fair Complex held in January 2000. IFEX 2000 was next in February 2000. South India’s largest Auto Exhibition AUTO FOCUS 2000 was third. AGRI INTEX 2000 was the fourth, after which CODISSIA held LIFE STYLE 2000, the Swadeshi Industrial Fair organised by the Centre for Bharatya Marketing and Development (CBMD), a Women’s Self-help exhibition with over 150 stalls representing arts and handicrafts made by women from over 28 districts of Tamil Nadu, the Amway Convention, a Buyer-Seller meet by CODISSIA and SISI, International Motorcar Rally by Spitfire Motorsports P Ltd. and IT Show 2001 by India Trade Fair Promoters.