A recent report issued by the National Convention and Exhibition Program (NCEP) revealed that there are 60 specialized companies planning to hold 226 trade exhibitions in 2015 across the Kingdom. Fifty percent of these will be held in Riyadh, 25 percent in Makkah, 14 percent in the Eastern Province, 5 percent in Madinah, and 6 percent distributed in a number of other regions of the Kingdom.

The report also indicated that the approved trade fairs will cover 18 economic sectors — consumer goods and retail sector by 18 percent, professional services sector by 13 percent, construction sector 11 percent, financing and trade sector 10 percent, and the healthcare sector 8 percent.

According to the report, 60 percent of exhibitions are scheduled to take place in the approved exhibition halls, 31 percent in hotels, and 9 percent on licensed halls for exhibitions.

Executive Director of the National Convention and Exhibition Center (NCEP) Tariq Al-Eisa said: "Supervising Committee of the program has communicated with the licensed companies and organizations that are approved by NCEP to organize convention and exhibition events, and it has formed a special team to review and evaluate the applications for exhibitions based on criteria adopted by the supervisory committee for the program.”

Trade fair applications that meet NCEP criteria and conditions have been submitted to the supervising committee, which in its recent meeting approved the action plan for the trade fairs in 2015.

“The number of trade fair visitors in 2015 is expected to breach four million mark, hence a notable change has been made in the quality of trade fairs in 2015. But there is still a need for a trade show specializing in promising economic sectors such as, the mining sector, education sector, sports, media, publishing, energy and utilities in addition to insurance and financial services,” Al Eisa added.

Analysis of trade fairs’ plan in 2015 indicates that, the second quarter of this year will reach the peak where it will acquire 40 percent of approved trade fairs, and 34 percent in the fourth quarter. About 53 percent of the approved trade fairs will be held for the first time, and the rest are but repeat fairs.