BERLIN, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Hannover Messe 2020, Germany's important industrial trade fair, has been postponed to July, its operating company Deutsche Messe announced on Wednesday.
According to Deutsche Messe, the regional health authority had "strongly recommended" that Deutsche Messe should follow the advice of the German Robert Koch Institute (RKI), a federal government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention.
RKI had advised to implement "comprehensive measures to safeguard health when hosting major events," such as fever measuring stations at all entrances as well as a ban on participation for guests from risk areas and their contact persons, Deutsche Messe noted.
Deutsche Messe was unable to implement the proposed measures and worried that the implementation "would impair the staging of the event." Consequently, it decided to postpone the trade fair.
"With the July date, we offer our exhibitors the earliest possible time slot to present their innovations to a global audience and to initiate business," said Jochen Koeckler, chairperson of the board of management of Deutsche Messe.
The partner association, Germany's Mechanical Engineering Industry (VDMA), also supported the decision.
"We assume that the situation will calm down in the coming months and that the mechanical engineering industry will then benefit from a reviving business situation," stressed VDMA chief executive officer Thilo Brodtmann.
Over the last two weeks, the world's leading travel trade show ITB in Berlin, the international craft fair in Munich and the Leipzig Book Fair as well as a number of smaller trade fairs in Germany had been postponed or cancelled. Enditem
