HONGKONG companies are to double their presence at the huge Frankfurt Premiere paper, cosmetics and gifts exhibition, say the organisers. Apart from a purely domestic exhibition in the United States, the show is the largest in the world for such products. This year's had 13 kilometres of aisles. Minibuses helped 44,000 buyers from 98 countries get from hall to hall. Mr Klaus-Jurgen Scholz, regional director of Messe Frankfurt, said the space taken by Hongkong companies at next January's exhibition would be double that at this year's. He said the number of exhibitors would go from 67 to more than 100. ''We now have many Hongkong companies which are establishing brand names,'' he said. ''Obviously, they are not as strong as Montblanc or Waterman . . . but that comes.'' Messe Frankfurt, a state-owned non-profit-making organisation, owns the exhibition complex and runs many of the exhibitions staged there. The 67 Hongkong companies at this year's fair gave Hongkong the highest profile of any Asian country except Taiwan, which had 168. Mr Scholz said the Trade Development Council (TDC) had achieved this by organising a large Hongkong pavilion. But he argued that Hongkong companies should now leave the TDC pavilion. ''We believe that the time has now come for Hongkong companies to promote their own image,'' he said. Hiring the smallest available booth, of 18 square metres, would, with partitioning, cost more than 7,000 deutschemarks (about HK$33,900).
