Next Meet in Africa

Ethiopia is an important leather producer with a large indigenous livestock population. It is one of the largest leather producing countries in Africa and will host the fourth edition of Meet In Africa. The event will take place in the national capital of Addis Ababa, October 6-9, 2004. At Meet In Africa 2004, AFLAI will hold its annual general assembly on October 6, the first day of the event. This will be the occasion to meet the national associations and leather companies in order to bring about a common African response to the new challenges of the international market. The formula will be different from those applied in the past years; the African businessmen have expressed their wish to give a rather more commercial orientation to the event. The buyers/sellers meetings, as well as the partnership meetings, will take place during the professional fair that will be held from October 7-9 at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). The International Trade Centre (ITC) UNCTAD/WTO in Geneva and the Société Internationale du Cuir (SIC) in Paris, France continue their collaboration in organising the event. The organisers of Meet In Africa (MIA) work closely together with the African Federation of Leather and Related Industries (AFLAI) and the ETFSGMA, an association created in August 2003 which groups together the three biggest Ethiopian associations that represent the tanning, shoes and leather garments sectors. Meet In Africa 2004 is open for African enterprises and non-African participants as usual.