FURNITURE DOMINATE TRANSACTIONS IN INDONESIA TRADE EXPO

Jakarta, Oct 23 (ANTARA) - Furniture dominated the first two-day transactions in the 23rd Indonesia Trade Expo which was opened by President Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono on October 21, 2008.

"The transactions reached US$ 5,64,281 and was dominated by Spanish, Greek, Italian and British buyers with the largest portion came from furniture (64.3%), handicrafts (14.2%), and cosmetics and herbal products (8.8%)," Bachrul Chairi, Head of National Agency for Export Development said here Thursday.
The figure would still increase and reach the peak on the third and fourth day.
"Furniture products are favorites. One of the exhibitors even earned a total of one million US dollars in transactions on the first day," he said.
"The producer of fire engines is said of having negotiations with buyers from the Middle East for purchasing five such fire trucks," he added.
The target of this year's expo increased 10% from US$ 200 million to US$220 million.
"The number of visitors is predicted to reach 20,000," he said.
Chairi added that a number of 4,600 buyers came on the third day of the event from 63 countries such as the US, Brazil, UAE, Australia, Japan, Nigeria, and Malaysia.
Meanwhile, non-traditional markets such as Lebanon and Algeria started to become interested in the fact that almost 50 buyers come from each country.