Mumbai, Jun 27 (UNI) The 65th National Garment Fair, billed as the country’s largest apparel trade show and organized by The Clothing Manufacturers' Association of India (CMAI), will be held from July 10 to 12 at Bombay Exhibition Centre, NSE Complex, Goregaon, north Mumbai. Minister of State for Textiles Smriti Irani, who will be the chief guest, will inaugurate the fair while Anant Kumar Singh, secretary (Textiles), will be the guest of honour on July 10. Rahul Mehta, president of CMAI, stated that this B2B Fair will be spread over approximately 6 lakh square feet area of the Exhibition Centre. There will be 881 stalls displaying 1,005 brands by 822 exhibitors. Approximately 50,000 retailers from pan India are expected to visit this 3-day B2B Fair. Besides expo, there will be three business networking sessions, comprising of agents & distributors, high street retailers, national chain stores & E-commerce companies, he informed. Mr Mehta further stated that after some confusion and uncertainty for initial 2-3 months for manufacturers and dealers, the Goods & Service Tax (GST) will be beneficial to the garment industry in the long run. Whilst welcoming the Government for having accepted CMAI’s request to reduce GST applicable on job work from 18 per cent to 5 pc, he said that unfortunately this has been done only up to the fabric stage and it will not benefit the smaller manufacturers and again requested the government to reconsider to reduce GST on job working at the garment stage also to 5 pc. UNI JM SS SM 2216