ISLAMABAD, March 15: The SAF Expo 2003 will be inaugurated here on Sunday.

The exhibition will go along with the forthcoming South Asian Federation (SAF) Games starting from March 29. Punjab Minister for Tourism Mian Mohammad Aslam Iqbal will be the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony to be held at 6 p.m. at the expo site behind Shakarparian.

M. Khurshid Barlas, the exhibition secretary, told Dawn on Saturday that 70 per cent of the pavilions and stalls out of a total of 350 had already been booked. However, the basic preparations for the exhibition were still in progress and most of the stalls and pavilions were being set up.

But the exhibition secretary said the job would be completed comfortably ahead of the formal opening of the exhibition. “We fell a little short in our preparations because of Muharram holidays. But now the work is in full swing and we are optimistic that everything will be in place for tomorrow’s opening ceremony,” Mr Barlas said. To a question, he said no SAF country was participating in the exhibition because there was very little time available to extend invitations. “But we intend to use this exhibition as a show-window of the country for the visiting sportswomen/men, delegations and the media officials from the participating countries. We have planned a visit of the SAF Games participants to this exhibition,” Mr Barlas said.

He said a number of leading state enterprises as well as the multinational and private sector entrepreneurs were participating in the exhibition and they would also put up their pavilions and stalls.

“A food street has also been set up in the exhibition offering the best traditional cuisine. To amuse the children and the youngsters, ‘magic shows’ and live music programmes will be organised daily throughout the exhibition period,” Mr Barlas said.