Following Europe, Asia and America, Messe Frankfurt is expanding its textile event portfolio to encompass Africa. From 2017 onwards, Messe Frankfurt will enter into a partnership with Africa Sourcing & Fashion Week in Ethiopia, leading to the integration of the three trade fair brands Texworld, Apparel Sourcing and Texprocess into the Africa Sourcing & Fashion Week.

Messe Frankfurt recently reached an agreement with Trade and Fairs East Africa, the organiser of Africa Sourcing & Fashion Week in order to achieve this.

“Due to increased wages and growing domestic demand within Asia, as well as the AGOA agreement between Africa and the USA, the African continent is becoming ever more important for textile production. Kenya and Ethiopia are playing a leading role in this”, stated Skander Negasi, Managing Director of Trade and Fairs East Africa.

This new involvement in East Africa will mark Messe Frankfurt's first venture into the new territory of the African textile industry. “For us, this partnership marks the start of our textile trade fair activities on an exceptionally interesting continent that is becoming more and more important for the textile industry and whose players will come increasingly to prominence”, commented Olaf Schmidt, Vice President Textiles & Textile Technologies at Messe Frankfurt.

Next year, the Africa Sourcing & Fashion Week will take place for the seventh time in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. At the most recent event from 4-7 October 2016, around 160 international exhibitors presented their products, with the biggest participations being with exhibitors from Turkey, Kenya, the United Arabic Emirates, Tansania, Sri Lanka, India, Italy and Germany. Apparel fabrics, leather goods, fashion and fashionable accessories will be the main items on display. Home and house textiles will also be presented, and machine manufacturers for garment production, CAD/CAM systems, printers, inks and accessories are also expected to have a strong presence at the event.