Five months after CEPIF 2007, preparations for the next year's Central Europe Property & Investment Fair in Warsaw, Poland, are in full swing, the event organizer's representative in Ukraine told the LED Monitor.
CTM Director Ihor Pyrih advises Ukrainian companies and municipalities contemplating participation not to hover too long, as the exhibition space sells fast, and the discounts are only allowed until the end of December.
CTM Director Ihor Pyrih: "The more projects from Ukraine the higher interest in it on the part of investors"
"Four Ukrainian companies have already booked booths, and twelve are accredited as visitors. We are also in negotiations with a number of other companies, as well as local governments and administrations," he said.
Like it was the case with the last fair, CEPIF 2008 will once again highlight projects related to UEFA EURO 2012 – the final tournament of European soccer championship that will take place in Ukraine and Poland, according to Mr. Pyrih. He believes, however, that it should not discourage non-host cities from participating.
"Exhibitions always do good. What's the use of hiding your project in a corner so that nobody will ever hear of it?" he asked. "Participation in such events allows for making contacts, learning experiences of other cities. This is a European approach to the business."
Olha Sadovska, Head of the Economy, Investment Policy and Foreign Economic Activities Department in Odesa – one of Ukraine's two cities (beside Dnipropetrovsk) that took part in CEPIF 2007 as a municipality – holds a similar opinion. "It's like fishing: sooner or later you will catch fish, but you need to cast the line and have a lot of patience."
She said that investors' increased attention to Odesa after CEPIF 2007 was obvious. Their main interest was in commercial property, like hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, etc. but also in the municipal projects presented at the fair. "Now they are waiting for the City Hall to decide how it all will be: which procedure will be used, whether there will be a bidding for investors, etc."
"At any rate we have positioned ourselves as an active city willing to take part in various investment attraction activities, also at the international level like that," she concluded.
The CEPIF web site calls the event in 2007 a "great success." According to the report, 3,671 participants represented 809 firms and 28 countries. The CEPIF 2007 Attendee List numbers only 18 entities from Ukraine. Both Mr. Pyrih and Ms. Sadovska consider the Ukrainian representation rather poor. CTM wants to extend the circle of Ukrainian municipal participants, in particular from smaller cities, enticing them with certain promotional "bonuses," such as publishing their projects on the company's web site, arranging for media interviews during the fair or even organizing a CEPIF Ukrainian Day.
"I work on this now," says Mr. Pyrih. "If we have at least six-seven municipalities, I'm ready to do that."
As an act of kindness, CTM has posted on its web site conceptual designs of industrial sites in Dzhankoy, Komsomolsk, Novohrad-Volynsky, and Vinnytsya, which were developed under the USAID LED project. The CTM director also suggests that these, as well as the project's other partner cities, could participate in CEPIF as one team, occupying one booth.
Ms. Sadovska says that support of a donor organization to smaller cities would be very helpful. "Let small cities present one or two projects. The point is that these projects need to be elaborate – as is common in international practice."
With its focus on EURO 2012, and bearing in mind that the CEPIF venue is in one of the tournament's co-hosting countries, the fair may be a right place for Ukrainian cities to promote themselves and try to attract investors, especially where the matter is projects on development of commercial property and tourism infrastructure.
Speaking at a workshop for representatives from the LED project's partner cities in November 2007, LED expert from the Czech Republic Dušan Kulka called the tournament a "great opportunity for Ukraine and for many of its local economies." He added, however, that "it's not for free." One of recommendations the expert gave to communities wishing to benefit from EURO 2012 was to create a common strategy that will focus, among other things, on joint marketing and promotion.
CEPIF 2008, to be held on May 14 and 15, will be the fifth such event organized by Warsaw-based redNet Property Group. On the web site, the organizer claims that it is the "largest property and investment event in the Central and Eastern Europe" and the "third most important meeting-point for the local real estate industry, apart from Expo Real in Munich and MIPIM in Cannes."
CTM, based in Illichivsk, Odesa Oblast, engages in real estate market research, integration of Ukrainian and European property information bases, exhibition activities, and construction, according to the company’s web site. Since 2005, CTM is the only official representative of redNet in Ukraine for CEPIF organization, the web site claims.