The Union was founded under an agreement signed by four exhibition organisers: HUNGEXPO - Hungary, INCHEBA - Slovakia, BVV - Czechia and PIF - Poland. INCHEBA Praha and Szeged International Fair were joined to the Union in 1998.
It is an answer to a growing demand for:
- credible statistical data on exhibitions, necessitated by membership in some international organisations such as UFI,
- accurate and comparable data needed by exhibitors, professional associations, media, etc.
The aims of CENTREX are: strengthening the leading role in a respective country of each of the collaborating partners and maintaining the regional lead in the exhibition business by introducing and keeping transparent exhibition statistics.
CENTREX will implement the above objectives by, among other things:
- advice to founding members on their internal procedures as related to a statistics system and exhibition control,
- protection of partner firms' interest within the range of exhibition statistics,
- updates of the joint Regulations for Exhibition Statistics,
- monitoring world-wide tendencies in exhibition statistics,
- consultations on exhibition statistics with national and international organisations, institutes, chambers of commerce and exhibitions,
- organisation, co-ordination and supervision of statistical audits in four exhibition companies.
CENTREX is an open organisation, which means that other legal entities can join the Union after they have adopted and implemented the "Harmonised Regulations of Exhibition statistics" and signed the relevant agreement.
The 1st CENTREX annual statistics publication will have been published by the end of February, which involves the exhibition statistics of the CENTREX members.