Assocomaplast: members at the annual meeting

On 6 June 2013, at Verdellino-Zingonia (near Bergamo, Italy), Cesap hosted the annual meeting of Assocomaplast (the Italian trade association belonging to Confindustria, which groups together some 160 manufacturers of machinery, moulds and equipment for plastics and rubber).
The association's president, Giorgio Colombo, opened his presentation by confirming the dates of the upcoming Plast trade show, which is organised by Promaplast, Assocomaplast's commercial company, and will be held in Milan from 5 to 9 May 2015. This means that the three-yearly international plastics and rubber industry event will be opening its doors immediately after the start of Expo 2015, and it is hoped that this concomitance with the world exhibition will have a catalysing effect on the specialist trade show.
Colombo went on to stress that Italian manufacturers of machinery, equipment and moulds for plastics and rubber must devote ever greater efforts to continually innovating and improving their products, so as to maintain their ability to supply high-tech solutions targeted primarily at the many important export markets that are increasingly investing in advanced, energy-efficient machines, also in view of the ongoing slump of the domestic market.
Recalling the principal indicators that characterised the sector's results for 2012 - production output at 4 billion euro, i.e., around the same as in 2011, and exports up 6% to nearly 2.6 billion - Colombo emphasised how it is once again foreign sales (which account for around 65% of the total) that are sustaining the industry.
This idea was also taken up by professor Marco Fortis (of Università Cattolica, and vice-president of the Edison Foundation), who in his talk underscored how the weakness of the Italian market and of several other European countries (in marked contrast with other global economies, most notably the US), due in part to overly-stringent austerity policies adopted by governments, is heavily crippling the manufacturing sector, which instead needs an immediate and energetic impulse to thrust it out of the current recession.
To support the Italian companies in this sector, Assocomaplast has scheduled a series of promotional events - trade show participations, workshops and B2B, technical seminars, buyer missions etc. - intended to foster, consolidate and improve awareness of Made in Italy plastics and rubber equipment across many global markets.
The next appointment will naturally be the K exhibition in Düsseldorf (from 16 to 23 October, 2013), where Italian exhibitors have traditionally been second only to those of the host country, again confirming the preeminent role of Italian equipment makers on the global stage.