Moving Asia's largest computer trade show from June to September is expected to halve the number of overseas visitors the show can attract, the top man at the show's organizer said yesterday.

"We hope we can have more than 10,000 foreign visitors come [to this year's Computex Taipei]," Chao Yung-chuan , secretary-general of the China External Trade Development Council (CETRA) said yesterday. "This is a significant drop from last year's 23,000 foreign buyer numbers."

Computex was originally scheduled to start next Monday, but the show was canceled over concerns that SARS would keep exhibitors and buyers away. On Wednesday, the organizers rescheduled the event from September 22 to 26.

An official at Computex co-organizer Taipei Computer Association agreed that numbers would be down, but would not offer an attendance prediction.

"The number of foreign visitors to Computex will certainly be down this year, but as we only decided on the dates Wednesday, it is very difficult to make any predictions about attendance figures yet," association manager Sakura Yang said yesterday.

"The numbers will be down, as many visitors may have planned to attend other events in September," Yang said.

"We asked our members and they said they still wanted to have the show this year, not cancel it," Yang said. "They expressed a preference for a new time in September or October, and we found September 22 to 26 was a possibility."

Companies that planned to show their wares at the original Computex remained tight-lipped about the new dates yesterday.

"We just got the news this morning and are currently contacting our regional offices for feedback," said Ginny Cheng, public relations manager of BenQ . "We don't consider Computex a Taiwanese show. It is more international and therefore we need to find out the opinions of our regional offices -- for example in Hong Kong and Singapore -- before we proceed."

"The company is still in the process of evaluating whether we will go ahead with our Computex plans or not," said Stephanie Tsai, public relations manager at the Taiwan branch of US-based flat-screen computer display manufacturer Viewsonic Corp.

Computex now follows immediately after Cebit Asia, a computer trade show that takes place in Shanghai from September 18 to 21 this year, but officials deny the new dates were chosen to allow overseas visitors to take in both shows in one trip.

"We were not affected by the dates of Cebit Asia when making our decision," Yang said.  

But the show must go on.

By: DocMemory
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