The Fairs & Exhibitions Committee of Surgical Instrument Manufacturers Association of Pakistan (SIMAP) has expressed deep concern over the state of affairs related to fairs, exhibitions and delegation managed by the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan.
The Convenor of the Committee and Senior Vice Chairman of the Association, Waseem Abbas in a SIMAP meeting said that certain issues relevant to fairs and exhibitions are pending for a long time for settlement.
He said that there is a lack of co-ordination between the industry and TDAP in this regard and it is felt that due to ineffective liaison within TDAP officials regarding status of exhibitions, the industry and the exporters suffer.
In this regard, he quoted the example of status of various new surgical instruments exhibitions, which were recommended by the Exhibitions Committee of Surgical Association, after thorough review and analysis, have been hovering within the TDAP officials for the last many months and the file keep on moving from the table of one official to another and no decision has been taken yet.
He further said that the Industry and the association are facing extreme problems in release of subsidies of certain allocated fairs and the latest example in this regard is India Medicare 2005, wherein Surgical Association arranged participation of its members in this event in October 2005 and since then the Association is waiting for the release of subsidy for this exhibition, despite submission of required documents and reminders for countless times to various quarters of TDAP.
Waseem Abbas said that there is an urgent need that Director General TDAP Lahore should visit Sialkot and discuss all the above mentioned and many other issues relevant to TDAP so that things could be sorted out and TDAP and the Trade Associations could work together for the betterment of the relevant sectors.