Kathmandu : House of Rajkarnicar (HoR) is to organise the 10th Himalayan Expo 2000 at Bhrikuti Mandap beginning April 12. The Expo will last for five days.

The Expo is expected to host about 200 exhibitors from Nepal, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Portugal, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

The organisers said that the composition of foreign participation had grown slightly this year reaching around 60 per cent of the exhibitors. About 40 per cent of the exhibitors are joining the Expo for the first time.

Nepal-USA Pavilion, the British Pavilion, German Catalogue Show, the SAARC Information Kiosk and the National Small-scale Industries Corporation (NSIC) from India will be the main attractions of the Expo.

The Nepal-USA Pavilion jointly organised by the Nepal-USA Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the US Embassy is expected to occupy about 300 square metres of space with about 23 companies. Catalogue show on infrastructure and environment will be one of the attractions of this Pavilion.

The British Pavilion, jointly organised by the British Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the British Embassy under the sponsorship of the British Trade International, will also cover about 300 square metres of space with 22 companies and organisations. About seven of these companies will be coming directly from the UK.

The German Catalogue Show will be organised by Nepal German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Show will be exhibiting numerous product catalogue of German companies. Similarly, the NSIC will have 10 companies will display small-scale industrial machines and equipment for the medium and small-scale industries of Nepal.

Expected to be visited by over 70,000 people with target 42,000 business visitors, the Expo would feature talk programmes on various business issues.

HoR’s managing director Birendra Rajkarnicar told a press conference here this afternoon that Himalayan Expo was consolidating itself as a business event over the years.

Shree Distillery, Radisson Hotel, Gorkha Brewery, Kwality Ice-cream and Bottlers Nepal are among the major sponsors of the event. Other sponsors include Gulf Air, Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Biman Bangladesh, Pakistan International Airways, Standard Nursery and Nepal Samacharpatra.