ITMA 2023 held in Milan for the first time after the pandemic had undoubtedly been the most important meeting of the global textile sector. While leaving behind 7 days full of launches and machine sales, textile professionals from all over the world came together, this highly anticipated exhibition since its 2019 edition in Barcelona, has stuck in mind with cutting-edge technologies that shape the textile industry’s future towards sustainability and digitalisation and attractive demonstrations. As Textilegence, we also followed the exhibition on-site and witnessed the brands’ exciting shows, which are the fruits of four years, of bringing to the scene first-hand.
1,709 exhibitors including the global industry’s major players such as Trützschler, Mayer & Cie., Brückner, Konica Minolta and more from spinning to weaving, knitting to finishing, dyeing to printing shared their latest solutions for changing market demands on June, 8-14. Over 111,000 visitors from 143 countries have come to ITMA 2023 to discover new opportunities. The top six visitor arrival countries are Italy (29%), followed by Turkey, India and Germany (6% each), France (4%) and Brazil (3%).
“Transformation journey toward digitalisation and sustainability has taken a huge leap forward at ITMA 2023”
CEMATEX President Ernesto Maurer said that this edition has been a great success with the visitorship higher than the previous exhibition in 2019 and noted that at this ITMA, the transformation journey toward digitalisation and sustainability has taken a huge leap forward. Maurer continued: “It has been a mega gathering with the presence of stakeholders of the entire textile and garment making ecosystem. CEMATEX associations and their member companies, as well as all other exhibitors, are delighted with the results as the exhibition has surpassed all our expectations.”
ACIMIT Director Federico Pellegata commented: “The results of Milan edition confirmed ITMA as the most important showcase for the world textile machinery industry. It was a great success, judging from the quality of visitors in attendance, and many Italian exhibitors have secured contracts and sold their machines.”
Delegations from leading textile-producing countries showed great interest in the exhibition
The 19th edition of the world’s largest textile and garment technology exhibition also drew the participation of several delegations and supporting organisation groups. Among many officials and government representatives, ITMA 2023 hosted high-level country delegations from two of the major textile producing countries, India and Uzbekistan. The delegation from the 6th largest cotton producer in the world was led by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan, who declared his strong intentions to boost the textile industry in his country. Mirziyoyev visited the stands of important manufacturers in the weaving segment, especially Stäubli, and received detailed information.
India was represented by Darshana Vikram Jardosh, Minister of State (Textiles and Railways) of India who led the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) business delegation. The delegation comprised 39 top Indian textile and apparel CEOs keened to seize new opportunities by riding on the digitalisation and sustainability wave.
Jardosh, saying that ITMA 2023 was an excellent showcase of textile machinery, stated: “I am confident that interactions during the fair will further spur investments in the sector and help India achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 5F vision of Farm to Fibre to Factory to Fashion to Foreign vision.”
ITMA 2023 also welcomed Valentina Superti, Director, European Commission, DG GROW-Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. She gave a presentation at the Impact Financing for Sustainable Transformation forum.
Exhibitors left the exhibition satisfied
Exhibitors, ranging from start-ups to seasoned industry bellwethers at ITMA, gave the 2023 edition the thumbs up. CEO of Karl Mayer Group Arno Gärtner said that they had an unbelievable number of intensive discussions with their international customers and noted: “We are glad that the enforcement of IPR regulation is taken seriously at ITMA. We had successfully taken action against a case of infringement of our patent rights during the exhibition.”
In addition to the regular participants, some brands experience an ITMA exhibition for the first time. TreeToTextile Head of Application & Sustainability Ida Alnemo said that ITMA 2023 in Milan was their first participation in a large trade show, where they were offered the opportunity to participate in the Start-up Valley, a truly innovative environment which drew high attention amongst the visitors. Alnemo stated: “We had an overwhelming positive response from all over the world, and from all parts of the value chain. ITMA has been a great platform for future collaboration needed to scale breakthrough innovations like ours, to make a positive change of the textile industry in offering better fibres to all.”
In addition, ITMAconnect, the world’s largest digital listing of textile and garment technology manufacturers, was launched to complement this year’s ITMA exhibition. Non ITMA 2023 visitors are now be able to access the platform to source and network with international technology owners and manufacturers who took part in the Milan exhibition.
Next stop of ITMA is Germany
ITMA, which successfully concluded another edition with an intense participation and interest, will bring the global textile industry together in Hannover in 2027 for the first time since 1991. ITMA 2027 will be held at the Hannover Exhibition Center on 16-22 September 2027.
VDMA Textile Machinery Chairman Dr Janpeter Horn said that ITMA 2023 is one of the few international shows that did not suffer a drop in the number and quality of visitors after the pandemic and commented: “This speaks volumes about the brilliance of ITMA! The Milan exhibition has set the benchmark for ITMA 2027 in Hanover. We are eager and confident to continue ITMA’s success story 36 years after it has been hosted there.”