admin Mobile World Congress is the world’s largest gathering of the tech industry, which has seen a cancellation for this year’s event. There were many concerns among the corporations regarding the spread of coronavirus. Many companies including Facebook, Intel Corp., MediaTek Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. cancelled the plans to attend the MWC this year. It was supposed to be run between 24 and 27 February.
A decision was to be made on 14 February as to conduct the MWC or not. But the decision was taken on 12th February to cancel the plans mainly because the major companies pulled off from the plan much before any further declaration was made. It was to be conducted by the Global System for Mobile Communications, popularly known as GSMA.
In a statement to Bloomberg News, John Hoffman, the Chief Executive Officer of conference organizer GSMA Ltd., said: “With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event.”
MWC is held annually in Barcelona and has a big impact on the economy, almost of 492 million euros, and it also potentially creates 14,100 part-time jobs.
Coronavirus cases have reached account of more than 42,000 and the total number of deaths has tolled to more than 1100. Even though most cases have been reported from Wuhan Province of China, as many as 25 countries have reported the cases of coronavirus infection. The GSMA tried to reduce the fears in the minds of the attendees by recommending them to not shake hands with anyone and even banning the visitors arriving from Wuhan.
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