OREANDA-NEWS. The management of Expocentre and the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry held a meeting with representatives of federal and industry media on the results of the Expocentre activities in 2012 as well as future plans of the company.

Speaking about the results of the past year Sergey Bednov, Director General of Expocentre noted significant success.

In 2012 sales increased by 27% to 5.3 billion roubles. In comparison to the pre-crisis year of 2008 the net profit rose by 46%, and labour productivity by 67%. The area of exhibitions held at Expocentre in 2012 totalled 703.5 thousand square meters (net), making up 30% of all exhibitions held in Russia.

In 2012 Expocentre Fairgrounds hosted 105 exhibitions. Special attention was paid to the exhibitions devoted to innovations whose share in the Expocentre calendar exceeds 20%. It is projects like the successful Innovative Russia Forum, which brought together Photonics. World of Lasers and Optics, Navitech, High Technologies of the 21st Century, New Electronics, and several others. Among other innovative exhibitions there are also Svyaz-Expocomm, Khimia, Semicon Russia, Hi-Tech Building, and others.

The congress activities have also increased successfully. Over the year 711 congresses were held. They included the Open Innovation International Forum of Innovative Development, the 50 Plus Forum and Exhibition, the Russian Internet Week, and many other large and important events.

Organization of Russian expositions abroad was one more important activity of Expocentre in 2012.

Expocentre is constantly improving its exhibition services trying to provide a comfortable environment for both exhibitors and visitors. Currently the entire territory of the venue is covered by Wi-Fi. The pavilions are fit out with modern equipment, exhibitors and visitors can enjoy the most up-to-date services such as electronic visitor registration, electronic tickets, electronic business matchmaking and much more. A project for mobile navigation at the venue is under way.

Expocentre is paying constant attention to the press. Sergey Bednov announced plans to create a Press Club, which will be equipped with modern information tools and will be a comfortable place for journalists to work and communicate.

"The success of Expocentre is the result of extensive work by our professional team", summarized Sergey Bednov.

The work of Expocentre’s team in 2012 was also praised by Sergey Katyrin, the President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Chairman of the Expocentre Board of Directors. He said that in the highly competitive market of exhibition services Expocentre retained its leading position and had good prospects for development. The Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry actively supports the initiatives and development plans of Expocentre. “For the Chamber of Commerce and Industry”, said Sergey Katyrin. “Expocentre is an organization that is largely determining the development of the entire system of chambers of commerce.”

Some development plans of Expocentre were presented during the meeting.

Mikhail Tolkachev, Deputy Director General of Expocentre, told the journalists about prospects of the company’s own projects including such major shows as Prodexpo, Mebel, Neftegaz, Metalloobrabotka, Agroprodmash, Zdravoohraneniye, Mir Detstva, Elektro, Svyaz-Expocomm and other well-known exhibition brands promoting new trademarks, new breakthroughs and technologies in the Russian market.

Prospects for the development of such activities as national exhibitions abroad were presented by Nikolai Bugaev, Deputy Director General of Expocentre. He also introduced two innovative projects, the 5pEXPO International Forum of Exhibition Industry, and the Expopriority International IP Forum on Intellectual Property, which in 2013 will launch one more new project: Expocentre For Counterfeit-Free Exhibitions.

The presentation of Andrew Zhukovsky, Deputy Director General of Expocentre, was devoted to assessing economic and multiplier effects of the exhibitions held in Expocentre. Andrey Zhukovsky also presented some of Expocentre’s initiatives aimed at creating a transparent and civilized exhibition market including the creation of national and regional ratings as a tool for development of the exhibition business.

The journalists asked many questions including those concerning the prospects for further development of Expocentre. Responding to them,

Sergey Bednov in particular rejected as unfounded rumours that Expocentre is going to move to Vnukovo and leave its current site at Krasnaya Presnya. "Nothing like that. On the contrary, we have plans to develop the site here, on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment", said the head of Expocentre.

Details about the development of Expocentre Fairgrounds at Krasnaya Presnya were given by Nikolai Antonov, Deputy Director General. In particular, in 2013, it is planned to finish a start up complex, which will link the Moscow City Business Centre and Expocentre. Speaking about the prospects of Expocentre-Vnukovo Fairgrounds, he mentioned that the project requires further research and support from the Moscow City Government.

A representative of e-media wondered how Expocentre would react to the idea of creating ??a television channel devoted to exhibitions. "Keeping your own TV channel up and running is quite difficult. But we have plans together with the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry to launch a TV portal in which exhibition activities would be significantly promoted. So such project does exist", said Sergey Bednov.

The meeting ended with awarding diplomas and memorable gifts to editorial staff and individual journalists who actively covered the work of Expocentre in 2012.