UNIDO ITPO Italy and UNIDO Somalia joined the 2021 edition of Macfrut, which was held from 7 to 9 September 2021 through a virtual booth representing all the UNIDO Enterprise Development Units (EDU) in Somalia, namely EDU Baidoa, Beletwayne, Kismayo and Mogadishu.

Macfrut is the leading Italian trade fair for national and international professionals operating in the field of fruit and vegetables, with a focus on 11 sectors involved: Seeds, Plant Breeding & Nursery, Crop Technologies, Production, Trading & Retail, Processing Machinery, Packaging Materials, Fresh Cut, Dried Fruit, Logistics and Services.

The virtual booth, showcasing the fruit&veg products of several selected Somali small-and-medium sized enterprises, successfully attracted great interest of buyers at the fair (especially from India, China and United Arab Emirates), also exploring the possibility for Somali SMEs to receive ad-hoc training in terms of market capacity and access to international trade.

The UNIDO staff also had the possibility to discover the B2B opportunities offered by the virtual platform Fructidor — where companies can register, show their products for both short and long periods of time, and access a database with more than 146,000 professionals from 138 countries around the world.

The initiative was organized in the framework of the project “Agro-technology development for Economic Growth in South and Central Somalia”, funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and implemented by UNIDO in collaboration with the Somali Federal and state level Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Somali Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the UNIDO Enterprise Development Units in Somalia.