India is to allow exhibition centres to reopen from 15 October as part of the country’s next phase of lifting coronavirus-related lockdown rules.
Lockdown restrictions will still apply to containment zones until 31 October.
India is reporting more than six million confirmed infections, adding more than 80,000 new cases on 30 September alone. However, the recovery rates remain the highest in the world also.
Nevertheless, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs has published new guidelines for the reopening of the country outside of Covid containment zones and the new guidelines will be in effect until the end of October.
In particular, the regulations state that, “B2B exhibitions will be permitted to open with effect from 15 October 2020, for which the SOP (standard operating procedures) will be issued by the Department of Commerce”.
RE Rogers MD Ravinder Sethi tells EW: “This has been much awaited news for our industry. It’s amazing how much the morale has lifted in the last 24 hours. We, however, have to maintain extreme caution in following the SOPs while reopening - the last thing we need is returning to square one due to negligence or laxity.”
The government document is available here.
