FIAM - the Amazon Show

Although Manaus is booming, I know from inside SUFRAMA that it was very difficult to put this sixth edition up, nevertheless they did and did it wonderfully. Fiam 2011 was a success -- The Amazon showcase -- four days of intense action, business, politics, reporting and academic work. The visitors had at their disposal 400 exhibitors distributed in 228 booths to present products and services geared for commercial and industrial sectors, as well as institutional projects, and a wide range of products manufactured from raw materials of the Amazonian biodiversity: handicrafts, food, phytotherapy, phytocosmetics and furniture, among others.

People from many of the other states in Brazil were in Manaus for the occasion and so were people from many other continents. Even the president of Brazil was in Manaus and many ministers along with her. Visitors saw the motorcycles, TVs, monitors, computers, air conditioners and high-end technology of all sorts produced in Manaus as well as the forest goods and foods.

Supporting all this there are the people of Manaus, who know how to welcome and make us feel at home. Proud of their heritage they have a clear sense of their task, responsibility and challenge. The participation of the common citizen in the event was very large. They came, they saw and they enjoyed their moment of national and international exposure -- now more people know there is Manaus in Brazil and it is good and important.

Along product exhibitions FIAM offered a wide varied program including business and tourism rounds, an innovative entrepreneurship hall, a seminar program covering topics that are strategic for regional development and aim to transmit general knowledge about the Amazon Region, as well as generating subsidies for steering public policies, and the Amazon Region Pavilion - an area that is set aside for exhibiting and selling products from the region.

The numbers speak for themselves: the Business Rounds generated more than US$13 million. There were about 2,000 participants in the seminars, over 400 exhibitors from the Industrial Pole of Manaus and the states of the Brazilian Amazon, six projects with businesses closed to investors in the Hall of Projects and an estimated 130,000 visitors during the four-day event.

The next Fiam will b e in 2013. You, my dear reader, are already invited to come to Brazil, to the Amazon, to Manaus, for that next show. Now, your business does not need to wait two years, at any time refer to SUFRAMA for information and assistance on setting up a plant of any sort at Manaus Free Trade Zone. ( www.suframa.gov.br )