MIDRAND - The Buffalo City exhibitors at the South African International Trade Exhibition at Gallagher Estate here are upbeat about this year's show.

Although the first day of the event - which opened yesterday and runs until Friday - is generally regarded as slow, other exhibitors showed a lot of interest in the Border Kei Chamber of Business stand.

This was said by both BKCOB chief executive Les Holbrook and Creative Image's Mike Hendrikse.

Pride of place on the stand was a robotic arm "working" on a top-of- the-range C-Class Mercedes Benz.

The recently launched rural solar power panels and cardboxes took pride of place on one corner of the stand displaying the range of electronic applications that local company Vektronix can offer manufacturers around the world.

The exhibition this year has taken a fourth exhibition hall due to the increased interest in the show which has become southern Africa's showcase to the world and the world's shop window to the region.

Apart from a large number of exhibitors from South and southern African countries, the Far East, led by China, is the largest regional exhibitor by far.

"We are expecting things to pick up tomorrow when the serious business of showing the world and the rest of the region what we have got begins in earnest," Hendrikse said.

He felt that this year's exhibition was a little bigger than last year but "the range of things is larger and the quality of the exhibits is also up".

Holbrook was also looking forward to more interest being shown in the Buffalo City area but expressed cautious optimism, saying that "the level of interest shown at Saitex is not as good an indicator as what happens in the few months after the show".