The opportunity of meeting new cooperation partners and establishing new business contacts was taken by 233 companies from 15 countries at the Contact–Contract event at this year’s International Engineering Fair in Brno. According to Čeněk Absolon, Director of Brno Regional Chamber of Commerce, almost half of these companies came from abroad, with a predominance of company representatives from Slovakia which is acting as partner country to this year’s fair.
According to Absolon, the traditional Contact–Contract event, at which companies look for new business opportunities, provides compelling evidence of the boom in Czech industry. More than 400 bilateral talks were held over the course of the two-day event at the venue for business talks in Hall A2 and on exhibitors’ stands. The “record-holder” in terms of the number of meetings held was the representative of the Polish company OBREiUP who managed 13. “The format of the event does not anticipate the closing of a contract on the spot. These are initial business meetings. Contracts cannot be expected to be closed for at least six months afterwards,” noted Absolon.
One of the companies that took advantage of the chance of holding talks this year is the supplier of components for the space industry S.A.B. Aerospace, s. r. o. “Contact–Contract is a perfect opportunity for us to meet up with new business partners, as well as existing partners, and obtain new business contacts. For our company, which focuses primarily on the development of parts for mechanical constructions and is looking for production companies, 90 % of these meetings have been successful,” said Petr Skalický from the management of S.A.B. Aerospace, s. r. o.
The Slovak company MERCHANT, s. r. o., which is engaged in robotics, also took advantage of these meetings. “In my opinion Contact–Contract is an extremely well organised event. As an exhibitor, I welcomed company visits right on our stand. I am also familiar with B2B events from the other side of the negotiations table, and I appreciate the chance of getting to know a company in person, as a short description cannot convey the entire extent of its activity,” said company business manager Tomáš Mlynka.
The tenth year of the Contact–Contract event at MSV was again held as part of the activities of the Enterprise Europe Network. This pan-European network supporting cross-border co-operation is also celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. There were, in fact, a number of significant anniversaries at this year’s fair, the most important of which included the 60th year of the International Engineering Fair in Brno and the 100th year since the foundation of Czechoslovakia, and the organisers of the fairs have again taken advantage of them to attract tens of thousands of visitors.
