CEMATEX ((Comité Européen des Constructeurs de Machines Textiles), which comprises nine national European textile machinery associations, is the owner of ITMA, the worlds largest international textile machinery exhibition. Charles Beauduin, President of CEMATEX, has been busy since the announcement of ITMA Asia? 2014. In an exclusive interview, he spoke to the Editor of The Indian Textile Journal.
Excerpts:
Editor: How has been the response to ITMA Asia 2014? Which are the major countries participating and provide us some details with number of participants.
Charles Beauduin (CB): The response has been tremendous. The 2014 combined show will gross some 152,200 sq m in 13 halls and will be around 15 per cent larger than the last edition in 2012. To date, the event has attracted the participation of over 1,500 textile machinery manufacturers from more than 25 countries and regions.
Editor: Are there going to be any new facilities/infrastructure available for exhibitors as well as visitors?
CB: The exhibition will be held at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC), which features a comprehensive range of facilities. Due to strong response, all the available space in the halls has been allocated to exhibitors.
As such, we will be building an air-conditioned temporary structure to house the Association Village, which will be situated between the E and the W SNIEC halls where visitors will be able to obtain a wide range of information on the textile machinery industry.
Editor: How many participants are from India? How do you see/rate the response from India?
CB: Thirty four Indian manufacturers are exhibiting at the 2014 show, which is a significant increase from the 2012 show where we welcomed 22 Indian exhibitors.
Editor: What are the efforts taken to woo more visitors? Give us some details about the roadshows organised?
CB: Our promotional efforts have been focused primarily on the China and Asian markets. In China, roadshows have covered key textile making hubs such as Fujian, Guangdong, Shandong and Zhejiang provinces. Overseas promotions and roadshows have been centred on India, Indonesia and Vietnam, and for the first time we organised a roadshow also in Pakistan.
Editor: Have any fresh efforts taken to protect the patents/copyrights of technology providers during the show?
CB: Protecting intellectual property rights (IPR) has been a top priority for CEMATEX and stringent controls are in force to protect intellectual property at all ITMA and ITMA ASIA exhibitions. All our exhibitors have to sign a commitment to respect IPR, promising not to show any products, which infringe other companies rights, and there is an onsite Legal Secretariat office manned by IPR lawyers to support our exhibitors.
For the first time, we have uploaded a set of IPR procedures on the 2014 show website to guide all our exhibitors on the action they need to take if they believe their rights have been infringed.
Editor: Give us some details about Chinas participation in this show?
CB: The Chinese will form the largest group of exhibitors. More than 1,000 will be participating, taking up over 65,000 sq m of exhibition space.
Editor: From all the ITMA Asia shows organised so far, what are the messages and indications for the global textile machinery industry?
CB: According to Global Industry Analysts, Inc (GIA), the global market for textile machinery is estimated to reach $22.9 b