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Sharjah, the cultural capital of the UAE, honoured at 20the Thessaloniki International Book Fair
A delegation of the Sharjah Book Authority of the Emirate of Sharjah (Sharjah-UAE) had a meeting with TIF-HELEXPO management today. The Emirate of Sharjah will be honoured at 20th Thessaloniki International Book Fair (TIF) from 16 to 19 May 2024.
The visit to the offices of the exhibition agency’s management followed the recent signing of the cooperation agreement between the Hellenic Foundation for Culture (HFC) and the Sharjah Book Authority. The participation at the TIF of the Emirate of Sharjah, which is considered the cultural capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), will be hosted in pavilion 13 of the Thessaloniki International Exhibition Centre.
“It is a great honour for us that you are here and that the Emirate of Sharjah will be honoured at the upcoming Thessaloniki International Book Fair,” stated the president of TIF-HELEXPO, Mr Tasos Tzikas, addressing the members of the delegation. In turn, the chief executive of the Sharjah Book Authority and Sharjah Book Fair, Mr Ahmed Al Ameri, said that culture is the best way to build bridges. On her part, the coordinator of the Thessaloniki International Book Fair, Ms Nopi Hatzigeorgiou, noted that this participation is a great opportunity to start a new dialogue between the two countries focused around culture.
Lastly, TIF-HELEXPO’s CEO, Dr Kyriakos Pozrikidis, underlined the very positive experience that the exhibition body had from the
participation of the United Arab Emirates as the Honoured Country at the 86th TIF.
The meeting was also attended by Mansour al Hassan (Director of Publishing Services), Karima El Azizi (Head of International Affairs), Asma Akram (Lead Officer – Special Projects), and the General Director of TIF-HELEXPO, Mr Alexis Tsakirlis.
The agreement on the participation of the Emirate in the International Book Fair of Thessaloniki came after discussions that began in November 2021, when H.E. Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi visited the event as president of the International Publishers Association, at the invitation of the HFC. The discussions on cooperation between the two international book fairs, those of Sharjah and Thessaloniki, continued at the Cairo International Book Fair 2022, where Greece was an Honoured Country, and were concluded in Sharjah, with the signing of the agreement, outlining the development of a broader programme of cultural exchange that includes books and other aspects of the cultural heritage and contemporary identity of the two countries.