DITF yet to gain momentum on 2nd day

Dhaka International Trade Fair (DITF) 2020 is yet to gain momentum due to lack of buyers and visitors, as decorations of most of the stalls and pavilions were incomplete as of on Thursday.

Visiting the fair on its second day, it was found most of the stalls and pavilions were still under construction while the number of buyers was thin. 

The 25th edition of DITF 2020 began on Wednesday in the capital’s Agargaon area. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the month-long fair. 

"There was no crowd in the fair from morning till 1:00pm," said Md Ali Jimmy, a sales executive of Alif Enterprise. 

"Hopefully the number of visitors would increase during the evening hours."

He hoped there would be more customers in the coming days.

Walton Group has three pavilions in the trade fair. The group offers discounts on their variety of products.

Saiful Islam, a pavilion-in-charge of Walton Group, said they were expecting to exceed their sales this time from the total receipts bagged from the last year's trade fair.

Asked, he said the construction works of their pavilions were completed, but the decorations would take another day or two to finish.

Navana Ltd is exhibiting four types of new Toyota brand automobiles at their pavilion.

AKM Iftekharul Alam, senior assistant sales manager, said the cars on display at the fair are aimed only for branding purpose. Customers could visit their sales outlets across the capital later and place their orders for their desired Toyota models.

Ayesha Rahman, Rubaiya Jaman and Nancy Akter, three friends from Badda, came to the fair for winter jackets. But the prices were too high this year, they said.

Winter blazers for both men and women were selling for Tk1,500-Tk2,500 per piece at several stalls in the fair.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau, there are 483 stalls of different organizations from 21 countries including Bangladesh this year. 

Among them, there are 112 pavilions, 128 mini pavilions and 243 different category stalls.