Переведите пожалуйста текст. Information Forums for Decision-MakersBy Dr Hermann

Переведите пожалуйста текст.
Information Forums for Decision-Makers
By Dr Hermann Kresse,
Chief Executive Officer of the German Trade Fair
Industry (AUMA)
In 2001 developments in the trade fair and exhibition
industry were dominated by far-reaching changes in the
general economic and political conditions that were dictated
by two major factors: firstly the economic slowdown in many
countries, which was accompanied by a falloff in foreign trade
growth, and secondly the terrorist attacks on September 11 in
America and all the political and economic consequences.
In view of these problems the performance of the German
exhibition centers in.
With a few exceptions, international fairs staged in Germany
continued the growth course in the previous years.
133 international fairs were attended by a total of 171,000
exhibitors, which is 3 per cent more than in the previous
events.There was also no appreciable number of cancellations
in the aftermath of September 11. Growth in visitor
attendance was fuelled primarily by the foreign exhibitors,
whose number increased by a full 4 per cent to 84,000.This
accounted for 49 per cent of the total, brining this figure
within touching distance of the 50-per cent mark for the
very first time.According to the current interim figures
the leased exhibition
1, 5 per
cent, to around 7, 2 million square meters.
The unusually high growth achieved in the year 2000
cannot be taken as representative for comparison here. It
was a once-off effect caused by the fact that several exhibition
centres used new additional capacity for the first time that
year, boosting both exhibitor and floor-space figures.
Visitor attendance totaled around 10.7 million last year.
A precise comparison with the attendant figures for the
preceding events is not possible however, because of the
changes in the official definition for counting visitor
attendance. The events of September 11 certainly had an
effect on visitor attendance but the precise extent is impossible
to quantify. According to AUMA estimates it probably
resulted in a reduction of 2 to 3 per cent for the year as a whole. There has already been a marked reduction in the
repercussions of this effect, however.
The most important quality factor at German fairs
continues to be their high internationalism on both the visitor
and exhibitor sides. This applies both for the absolute figures
for foreign partici pants and their world wide geographical
distribution. In 2000 nearly one fifth of all foreign exhibitors
came from Asia and nearly 11 per cent from North and
South America. Overall, the non- European countries
accounted for nearly a third of all foreign exhibitors. Nearly
one fifth of the 1.9 million foreign visitors also came from
overseas. No other trade fair country anywhere in the world
has figures approaching these dimensions.
Germany's exhibition centre operators are continuing their
investments in foreign marketing, service quality and technical
infrastructure. Currently they are investing a total of around
500 million per year in the expansion and modernization of
their exhibition building alone, for example.