Berlin - In an outspoken attack on the IFA consumer-electronics show in Berlin, Panasonic executive Joachim Reinhart said in an interview Friday it was provincial and disappointing.

Reinhart, who heads the Japanese manufacturer's European operations, poured scorn on IFA's ambition to rival the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held every January in Las Vegas, Nevada. IFA opened Friday and runs till Wednesday next week.

He said he did not perceive the event as upgrading from a German event into an international one. Opening speeches had been conducted in German, not English, and had praised the industry in Germany only.

"If you are going hold an international-level fair, you have to talk at a European level at the very least," Reinhart told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in the interview in Berlin.

IFA organizers said that last year, 5.7 per cent of the 200,000 visitors to IFA came from abroad. (dpa)