A seafood treat at the mouth of Love River Taiwan’s Seafood and Fisheries Show The TFSS 2016 took place in Kaohsiung’s Conference and Exposition Centre in southern Taiwan on November 9-11, 2016. Over 212 companies were on the exhibition floor and represented among the 401 booths in this most modern of exhibition buildings right at the centre of this massive port city of Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and is noted for its tall high-rise buildings, particularly the 248m-tall Tuntex Sky Tower as well as its diversity of parks.The Exhibition hall makes a significant impact on the city’s skyline in the port area where the Love River meets the sea and the island of Qijin acts as a natural breakwater. This Taiwan International Fisheries and Seafood Show, to give it its full name, offers that unique experience of being commercial yet in a relaxed consumer or tourist environment: providing the latest in technology yet offering a low-key retail-like experience; providing information on every type of fish species bred or caught for food production while sampling different foods from these two industries cooked and served on the spot. To break up this over-indulgence in the taste, there was a complete fanfare of fishing equipment to discover- from fish production and harvesting, through to processing and retail - there were specialised breakout conferences. It was into this expo environment that International Aquafeed entered Kaohsiung for the second time in little over a year. The theme of the show was ‘Green Fishery and Resource Sustainability,’ which aimed at building awareness of sustainability for an industry that is quickly exploring potential solutions to the challenges that hold back fish production - from both the capture and fish farming industries – and to meet growing consumer demand for traceable, high-quality and safe fish products. “I feel the show is happening and everyone is speaking about our critical success,” says Irene Liu the general manager of MyExhibition one of the joint partners with Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA). “The global demand for fish is growing and we see the proof of this at our show. This is only our second time but the achievement in the number of exhibitors is higher than expected and even on the second day we have reached our overall target for visitors,” she says. “We actually targeted 6500 professional buyers, not just local but from overseas as well. By the second day we had achieved that number. For the exhibitors we have achieved a greater number of national governments exhibiting – 16 in total. And this year we welcomed visitors from 56 countries,” she adds. With 401 exhibitors, the show had achieved a 10 percent increase over 2015. “Given the undercurrent of the economy, this is a great achievement not just for us as the exhibition company but one which we have built for our customers.”
44 | January 2017 - International Aquafeed