Kanchi Kamakoti Peet's Chennai based NGO arm, Voluntary Education and Rural Development Society (VHERDS), in association with ZAK Trade Fairs & Exhibitions Pvt.Ltd. has embarked upon a major initiative to project and promote India's herbal industry to the world markets.

As a part of this initiative, VHERDS and Zak will be holding The International Herbal Expo & Seminar 2003, currently being held in Chennai at the World Trade Centre, at various venues in the country and abroad within the next two years.

Towards this, road shows will be held at Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad besides at Singapore, U.S. and Dubai, before the event again comes back to Chennai by October 2004. All the events will have participation of leading experts, technocrats and officials related to the herbal industry from different parts of the world, said Zakkeer Ahmed, Managing Director of ZAK International and Secretary General of the Herbal Expo & Seminar.

The current expo, organised alone by VHERDS in the previous editions, will become an annual event in the coming years, said Gopalakrishnan, Organising Committee Chairman of the event. Around 200 stalls have been set up for the exhibition and more than two lakh visitors are expected for the show, besides the participation of 1500 odd delegates.

The society, started in a small way in 1985 by the initiative of Chandrasekhara Saraswathi Swamighal of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham, is to undertake projects on cultivation of some rare herbal plants as part of rural development activities. A seminar was held in April 2002 to zero in and identify critical areas related to patenting and exports of herbal plants, and the success of that event prompted to organize Herbal Expo & Seminar in a big way, said Gopalakrishnan.