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Berlin's electronics fair reflects a somber mood

A visitor passes the Philips exhibition at the International Broadcasting Exhibition in Berlin last week. Manufacturers of TVs, video equipment and hi-fi appliances report a 5-percent slump in turnover for the first six months of the year. PHOTO: AFP

Asian and US sales executives, normally noted for their charm offensive at the bi-annual International Broadcasting Exhibition (IFA) in Berlin, have this week been struggling to keep smiles on their faces.

Stagnation in the electronic entertainment industry and sagging attendances at the fair are both to blame.

The show may be awash with advertising slogans, balloons and banks of glimmering TV sets and video recorders, but the trouble is that consumer interest appears to be waning.

More than 100,000 visitors showed up at the huge IFA show in the first two days after its 1999 opening. By comparison, last weekend's attendance was just 80,000, and figures remained lower than expected in the first half of the week.

When he opened the 200l show a week ago, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had a vision of this year's IFA being an "upbeat event."

But with manufacturers of TVs, video equipment and hi-fi appliances reporting a 5-percent slump in turnover in the first six months of the year, it's proving a touch difficult getting joyful about current industry trends.

The enlarged exhibition area is filled with gadgetry, sophisticated and sometimes bizarre in design.

People crowd around the world's longest picture tube, peer at minute camcorders and gasp at a TV screen so vapor thin that it's in danger of getting washed away with the wallpaper.

You can even find video recorders built like mini battleships.

Fascinated by the advances in the electronic entertainment field, young Germans look towards Asia for innovations -- and throng the stands of Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba, Sanyo and Yamaha.

From the Far East the news is sobering. Toshiba and Hitachi, two of the electronic giants in the east, are set to slash their work forces.

Toshiba, employing 188,000 people, will shed 20,000 jobs. Likewise Hitachi is also planning to cut its staff by 20,000. The news follows similar threats of job slashing by some European manufacturers, among them Siemens and Thomson Multimedia.

Not that this is registered by the Berliners. They stroll in leisurely fashion through the halls, clutching Panasonic promotional balloons shaped like small airships which, when inadvertently released by their bearers, shoot up to the ceiling.

In Berlin, Japanese executives have been at pains to play down the job cutting.

"These things happen in our sector," says a Sony official sanguinely, as if such developments are seasonal.
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