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by Elmo Leonard

Sri Lanka will conduct the fourth international AISEX - Apparel Industry Suppliers Exhibition - in November, with an eye on making the AISEX show the world's fourth most important exhibition.

The Bobbin Show held in Atlanta, USA is the world's foremost apparel industry suppliers exhibition, followed by the Cologne Show in Germany and the JIAM Show in Osaka, Japan.

These exhibitions are not annual events, but are held in rotation, as apparel machinery and equipment are very large and difficult to move while being technically sophisticated and expensive, a media briefing was told.

Sri Lanka held its first AISEX show in 1995. AISEX 2002, which will be held from November 8 to 10 at the CDC Convention Centre, Colombo 10, will be limited to 200 stalls. "The irony of it is that Sri Lanka does not have an exhibition centre large enough to contain more stalls," Director, CDC Conventions, Imran Hassan said.

AISEX is organised by the Sri Lanka Apparel Institute (SLAI). With inadequate space, the island is losing its opportunities as an exhibition location, Chairman SLAI, Prof Lakdas Fernando said.

An exhibition centre is being developed behind the BMICH, Colombo. This, though a good move, would yet be highly inadequate to hold international industrial exhibitions of the magnitude of those staged in Singapore.

Colombo, which is competing with Singapore for the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) market, for instance, has the hotel infrastructure needed to host large exhibitions, Prof Fernando said. "Space is all that is needed to construct a large exhibition centre; the structure being made of low-cost, pre-cast material, is easy to assemble," he said.

AISEX will cater to the small and medium sector of the apparel manufacturing industry,said SLAI Administrative Secretary, E. Sparr .

Colombo is ideally located to stage the world's fourth largest apparel industry suppliers exhibition as South Asia, with 20,000 apparel manufacturing factories, has the highest concentration of apparel manufacturers in the world. With China, the largest clothing manufacturer of Asia, the continent accounts for the lion's share of global apparel manufacture.

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