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Berlin (dpa) - After several trade fairs in digital format, Berlin is planning large industry meetings again from summer.

Fruit Logistica will kick off with a hygiene concept in mid-May, as the new head of the fair, Martin Eckning, told the German Press Agency.

"We already have over 500 exhibitor registrations from 50 countries for the trade fair."

For the electronics fair IFA in September, private visitors will come to the exhibition center again.

"People want to come together again personally."

In contrast, the first major exhibition of this year in Berlin, the Green Week agricultural fair, will run completely online on Wednesday and Thursday.

Instead of hundreds of thousands of private visitors and country life to feel, taste and smell, there is a two-day exchange among experts on the Internet.

"Unfortunately, there is no digital cheese appetizer yet, but there is a need for exchange," said Eckning.

"The issues of food, agriculture and horticulture have all attracted attention due to the crisis."

The fair will also set the tone in the online format.

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Under the catchphrase “Messe Plus”, the company is preparing for performance shows to have a larger online share in the future.

“After Corona, trade fairs and congresses will remain in their basic substance, because this is how we work, because this is how marketplaces work, because this is how the world works.

But digital adjustments will play a role, ”said Eckning.

The Berlin exhibition center with its 27 halls is still needed for this, large vacancies are not to be expected.

"We're not planning to demolish exhibition halls."

However, visitor numbers like before the crisis are not in sight in the short term, for example at IFA in September.

"The world will certainly not be quite the same anymore, but we will have guests in the halls again," said Eckning.

"It will definitely be bigger than the IFA Special Edition 2020 last year."

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Because of the corona pandemic, only a good 6,000 visitors were able to come to the IFA last year on three days, and 78,000 online guests were counted.

At the previous edition, 250,000 people came to the site on seven days of the fair.

The Berlin state company is also preparing for a loss in 2021.

«Our owners kindly helped us last year.

One can assume that we will not get through the year 2021 without help, ”said Eckning.

But it should by no means become a permanent state.

In the “Berliner Morgenpost” (Friday) he put the financial requirements for 2021 at a mid-double-digit million amount.

The renovation of the exhibition halls, which has been ongoing for several years, should continue despite the liquidity bottleneck, said Eckning.

"You have to wrestle more with the budget now, but we won't stop making the right decisions about renovations and investments."

According to a study, the trade fair was a profitable business for Berlin until the Corona crisis.

Every euro of trade fair sales brought a good five euros of additional purchasing power to Berlin, calculated the Investitionsbank Berlin as early as 2015. Restaurants, hotels, stand builders, logistics and event companies, recruiters, taxi drivers, S-Bahn and transport companies benefited in particular.

If trade fairs attract more visitors online instead of physically, this yield is likely to be smaller.