DITF 2014 turns into an annual get-together for city dwellers

The Dhaka International Trade Fair (DITF) 2014 has turned into an annual get-together programme among the city dwellers.
Favourable weather, political stability coupled with insufficient recreation centres in the city pushed thousands of its dwellers to visit the DITF along with their friends and family members.
In addition to these, arrangement of mini 'shisu mela', 3D movie show and symbolic establishment of the country's biggest mangrove forest 'Sundarban' also attracted an increased number of visitors to the fair.
Tania-Bin-Wahid, a visitor to the DITF, said Friday she and her children were frustrated at being almost locked at home for long due to the political volatility in the country. Now she has come with other family members to visit DITF for recreation.
"We used to visit DITF every year but this year's visit is exceptional to us as we have come out of home for recreation after a long time," she added.
"Besides, we can find many necessary goods at one place which is also another vital reason for visiting the fair," Tania added further.
Tusuka Hasan, a student of class two who was enjoying different rides of 'shisu mela,' expressed happiness over having an extra scope for recreation.
"This is my third visit to the DITF. This year's visit is exceptional to me due to the arrangement of 'shisu mela' and 3D movie show," he added.
"We felt bored and helpless due to painful politics for long. This fair has opened a scope for recreation to us," Mirja Nazim, another visitor said.
"Whatever we bought is not vital, that we got a scope to come to the open air with family members is great to us," he added.
However, following the large number of visitors, participants at the biggest annual fair expressed their satisfaction over the sales turnover.
Almost all of them are offering stocky discounts like 'buy one and get one free' with many other benefits to attract visitors toward their products.
Household items including crockery, plastic goods, and home textiles are among the items that attracted the customers most.
Meanwhile, many of the visitors expressed their dismay over the high prices and poor quality of goods in the fair. They said despite discounts prices of many goods are higher than those of normal time.
"We have come to buy some household items but the prices the sellers demand are higher than those outside the fair which really disappointed us," a visitor told the FE.
This year's specious roads in the fair ground, extra arrangement for recreation both for children and adults have added satisfaction to the visitors, said an organiser.
A total of 480 stalls, pavilions and mini pavilions have been allotted to local and foreign companies. Last year there were 497 stalls and pavilions at the DITF.
According to the fair organising committee, of the total stalls and pavilions, 27 have been allotted to companies from 12 foreign countries.
The Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) and the ministry of commerce are jointly organising the mega event that will continue until February 10, 2014 at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in Dhaka.