As the biggest foreign visitor country of ITMA ASIA + CITME, Germany demonstrated its ambition in Asian market with new generation textile technologies it presented. German machine manufacturers, however expect for 2016 lower sales figure than the previous year in Turkey which is their second biggest market.
One of the significant manufacturers of global textile machinery sector, Germany showed its sectoral force and innovation power at ITMA ASIA + CITME 2016. German textile machinery manufacturers under the umbrella of VDMA, gained leader foreign country status with participant numbers and the greatness of their exhibiton space. More than a hundred German firms participated in the fair presented their solutions developed for textile value chain including nonwoven, weaving, knitting, warp knitting and finishing in an exhibition area wider than seven thousand squaremeters. VDMA member companies focused on solutions that decrease Industry 4.0 energy consumption and costs.
Evaluating the fair, VDMA Textile Machinery Managing Director, Thomas Waldmann stated that German manufacturers had proved the leader foreigner exhibitor position not only with total exhibition space but also exhibitor numbers. Pointing our the fair’s importance on meeting Asian market, Waldmann said; “Developing technologies that meet demands of the future by understanding the upcoming problems in Asian customers’ value chain is important for VDMA members as their long term partners.”
Expressing that VDMA member German firms left the fair with satisfying results in general, Waldmann stated as such; “At an organization happened in the evening of fair’s third day, a survey is made among the VDMA member firms. In the survey %84 of the companies evaluated total visitor numbers as good and very good. %95 of the companies evaluated the quality of the visitors as good and very good. It was also revealed that %60 of our exhibitors found foreigner visitor numbers good and very good and %69 of the firms found Chinese visitor numbers good and very good. Where %52 of the firms had positive expectations for their projects in China in 2017, %48 had satisfying expectations.
Reminding that Asia forms %50 of German exportation, Waldmann emphasized the fact that 1,4 billion £ worth of export made to this market. Waldmann stated that the biggest, 730 million £ worth part of the export made to Asia, was for China.
‘We Have A Very Close Partnership with Turkey’
Reporting that Turkey is the second biggest market after China for German textile machinery manufacturers, Thomas Waldmann stressed that Turkey has a big market volume. Underlining Turkey’s geographical and cultural closeness to Germany, Waldmann continued; “We observe many VDMA member companies’ close partnerships with Turkish establishments and universities proudly for decades. For instance, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of our partnership with Ege University in Izmir. The closeness between Germany and Turkey compared to the Far East countries, means much less cultural differences.
Defending that unpleasant events occured in a country created an uncertainty among the companies work there, Waldmann stated that this could happen not only in Turkey but also anywhere in the world. Waldmann evaluated the unexpected events happened in Turkey in 2016 as such; “Even though some of the projects started in 2015 and 2016 in Turkey were postponed, most of them are completed. However, new projects are still discussed. Looking back, I can say that 2016 started poorly. But there was an increase in the second quarter. Until the end of August, the textile machinery and accessories export of Germany can be evaluated as 105 million £. Even if the last quarter of the year was productive, this can’t compensate the poor beginning of the year. So, for the whole year, export of Germany will be less than 2015’s number.”
Stating that making a valuable prediction for the next term is getting more and more difficult, Thomas Waldmann pointed out that still, there are rising trends becoming popular in global market. Waldmann ended his words accordingly; “The future of textile industry is more and more determined by Industry 4.0, the connection between information technologies and production processes continue to grow. Without discussing the potential of new job models, advantages of Industry 4.0 develop facility productivity, a more economical manufacturing process, energy efficiency, a flexible production and more.”